


a freedom sound (do not cherish memory)

by badacts



Series: oh be cautious, do not stand too near [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew POV, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9475199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: Andrew only needed a few minutes to determine that Neil Josten was going to get under his skin.  He just didn’t foresee exactly how deep.





	1. impulsivity

**Author's Note:**

> Your local author is full of terrible ideas LOL BYE
> 
> (The Foxhole Court from Andrew's perspective. Dialogue belongs to Nora Sakavic. Rating subject to change.)
> 
> (Title is from my favourite poem, Hotel Emergencies by Bill Manhire.)

Millport was a town in its death throws, its main street windows half full of ‘for lease’ signs and its suburbs sporting an empty house on each block.

It seemed just the place to come looking for a Fox, if you didn’t know them in person. Allison Reynolds, after all, didn’t come from a place like this.

Neither did Andrew Minyard. He was from bigger, dirtier cities than this, cutting his teeth on back-alley crime until chance and his doppelgänger saw him turning over a new leaf. Or something like that.

Said new leaf had him sitting beside Kevin Day in a makeshift Exy stadium in Millport, watching the home team get thrashed. He had better uses for his Friday night than observing a goalkeeper who seemed unable to see the ball coming or a defensive line incapable of communication.

They were there for the striker. Neil Josten, nineteen years old, five-three, a rookie in every sense of the word. They were there because Hernandez said Josten was Fox material, and because Kevin saw something in the video of him playing. What exactly, Andrew didn’t know, and didn’t care to.

He saw a green player with a stubborn streak, one who wasn’t nearly as good as the strikers he’d faced off with this last season in the NCAA. He didn’t care to see more. _He_ was here for Kevin and a promise Andrew doubted a trembling neurotic with a sport obsession would be able to see through.

Whatever the others saw in Josten, it wasn’t enough for Millport’s team to take a win. That didn’t dull Wymack’s interest, though – he organised with the coach, Hernandez, to meet Josten face to face after the game. Andrew and Kevin were shuffled into the lounge to wait, while Josten was located for said meeting.

“He’ll be around,” Hernandez said vaguely, looking towards the locker room. “Give me a minute to talk to him first.”

He left. Before he followed, Wymack turned to the two of them and said, “Stay here,” his tone all grim warning.

Andrew saluted him, grin stretched out over his face. He’d taken an extra dose to account for their flight home, and he was riding the first rising waves of it before it drowned him. Kevin didn’t reply, as well-trained as ever – though now he was out of people willing to listen to him discussing Exy, he probably didn’t have much to say anyway.

He seemed tired, his mask of charm shed with Hernandez’s disappearance as he perched on the entertainment centre and spread out his ever-present armful of papers around him. Andrew was used to that shift by now, used to watching Kevin stripped bare on the court at night as he fired ball after ball at some imaginary spot on the wall trying to hone his aim.

The only betrayal of his nerves was the jitter of the paper in his hands as he picked up a sheet – that disappeared on the court, too. Whatever he was reading didn’t seem to make him happy, his frown growing.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Kevin said for the umpteenth time since they’d arrived, as though it wasn’t him who had been so insistent on them coming in the first place. “He isn’t good enough.”

“Save it for someone who cares,” Andrew suggested, tracking aimlessly around the room in an attempt to burn off some energy. Someone had left their racquet – a normal one rather than a goalkeeper’s – leaning against the lockers. Andrew palmed it, feeling the unfamiliar weight of it. It was bright yellow, harsh under the fluorescents but still more pleasant than Fox-orange.

He spun the racquet in his hand. “Rich kids are never careful with their things.”

“What,” Kevin started, and then turned and saw what Andrew was holding. “ _Put that down_.”

Andrew did not put it down. “Make up your mind, Kevin. Half the time it’s ‘do this, do that’ and the other half it is ‘stop it, don’t’. I really do struggle to keep up. Anyway, maybe I thought I would get in some extra practice while we wait.”

“No you didn’t,” Kevin said, scowling.

“No I didn’t,” he agreed. “What, do you think I am going to break it? That would be sacrilegious to you, wouldn’t it?”

He didn’t think about the screech and shatter of doing so, because to think for him was to act. Once upon a time, there were boundaries between the two, even if no one believed that. Now, the boundary was there but very, very thin – a little like wire-walking, over a long fall that looked like flying. Andrew’s drugged brain was terrible at telling the difference between the two: thinking and acting. Falling and flying.

There was a rattle of feet from a distance, getting closer. Well, then. Apparently Josten wasn’t just quick on the court, because Andrew doubted Wymack or Hernandez could move that fast.

He didn’t think – he just acted. As the kid burst out of the locker room in a blur of dark clothing, bag at his side, Andrew lowered the racquet and took a swing.

Impact. Andrew had never managed to hit someone full on with a racquet before, and it was satisfyingly effective. Josten went tumbling to his hands and knees on the floor with a crash, duffel bag rolling sideways, winded and struggling.

Wymack thundered through a door a second later, screeching to a stop at Andrew’s back. “God damn it, Minyard. This is why we can’t have nice things.”

“Oh, Coach. If he was nice, he wouldn’t be any use to us, would he?” Andrew replied silkily.

“He’s no use to us if you break him.”

“You’d rather I let him go?” Andrew doubted the kid would have stopped running within state lines, considering the speed he’d been going. “Put a band-aid on him and he’ll be good as new.”

On the floor, Josten finally managed to get his breath, choking on it as he curved an arm around his belly. He turned his face up to Andrew, eyes narrow and lit with fury, like he was any kind of threat down on the floor. Flight may have been his first instinct, but perhaps there was a little fight in there after all.

“Better luck next time,” Andrew said, offering him up a salute.

“Fuck you,” Josten spat back. “Whose racquet did you steal?”

“Borrow,” Andrew corrected. He threw it so it skidded over the floor to rest by Josten’s knees. “Here you go.”

Hernandez had inched his way around Andrew, and was there solicitously helping Josten to his feet with a hand hooked around his arm. “Neil. Jesus, are you all right?”

“Andrew’s a bit raw on manners,” Wymack said, shuffling between Andrew and Josten like he was willing to use his own body to shield the rabbit if necessary. It figured, really – he did look pathetic, still hunched over his middle like Andrew had actually hurt him, and Andrew was familiar with Wymack’s protective streak. He shrugged broadly and stepped back, Wymack’s eyes on him all the while.

Wymack was smarter than the others, observant like even Foxes weren’t, but he still persisted in believing Andrew unpredictable.

He looked back to Josten. “He break anything?”

So little faith. Andrew watched as Josten pressed his hands over his ribcage and inhaled, and then said, “I’m fine. Coach, I’m leaving. Let me go.”

“We’re not done,” Wymack said.

“Coach Wymack,” Hernandez began, only to be interrupted by Wymack’s less-than-casual request that he give them a second.

Hernandez looked between the two of them, and not at all at Andrew. Perhaps he thought they were going to drag Josten out of here and stuff him in the trunk of the car to take him back to South Carolina. Kevin might condone that, considering his desperation for a half-decent striker. “I’ll be right out back.”

Josten waited until the door swung closed to say, “I already gave my answer. I won’t sign with you.”

“You didn’t listen to my whole offer. If I paid to fly three people out here to see you the least you could do is five me five minutes, don’t you think?” Wymack said, because he’d had plenty of proof that persistence paid off in his tenure with the Foxes.

He may as well have struck Josten all over again right in the belly like Andrew did. The man stumbled backwards a step, winding his hand into the strap of his bag as all the flush drained out of his face. “You didn’t bring him here.”

There was only one person he could be talking about. Kevin Day didn’t warrant that kind of blatantly fearful reaction from anyone. Andrew felt his interest sharpen beyond vague amusement, purpose fighting the hold of the drugs and his natural disregard.

“Is that a problem?” Wymack asked.

“I’m not good enough to play on the same court as a champion,” Josten replied, trying to pass off his reaction as star-struck.

“True, but irrelevant,” Kevin finally spoke up, causing Josten to wheel around to see him. His expression was cool but evaluating, his court-made mask. Andrew sometimes wondered, with no little amusement, if he’d learned it from Riko, right down to the disapproval.

“What are you doing here?” Josten demanded. He sounded rubbery with surprise.

“Why were you leaving?” Kevin retaliated. Ironic, really: one runner to another.

“I asked you first.”

“Coach already answered that question. We are waiting for you to sign the contract. Stop wasting our time.”

“No,” Josten said. “There are a thousand strikers who’d jump at the chance to play with you. Why don’t you bother them?”

He was right - not many of those strikers would find Kevin and a college contract offer a bother. Most of them would have signed already. It was unfortunate that the best parallel Andrew could draw was with himself, but he suspected that Josten might have a different reason than blatantly not caring about the sport to say no.

Andrew had working eyes, after all – he knew what a dispassionate player looked like. Josten wasn’t it.

“We saw their files,” Wymack said. “We chose you.”

“I won’t play with Kevin,” Josten snapped.

“You will,” Kevin said, almost a threat. Andrew supposed he’d be the one to back it up.

Wymack shrugged. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’re not leaving here until you say yes. Kevin says we have to have you, and he’s right.”

So maybe they’d be stuffing Josten in the trunk after all. Looking at him, it was unlikely anyone would miss him. And he also didn’t seem any closer to agreeing.

“We should have thrown away your coach’s letter the second we opened it,” Kevin cut in. “Your file is deplorable and I don’t want someone with your inexperience on our court. It goes against everything we’re trying to do with the Foxes this year. Fortunately for you, your coach knew better than to send us your statistics. He sent us a tape so we could see you in action instead. You play like you have everything to lose.”

Something shifted in Josten’s expression. It figured he’d be the type to find Kevin’s near-rant somehow attractive. He said softly, “That’s why.”

“That’s the only kind of striker worth playing with,” Kevin replied. He meant it. It was no wonder he’d found the Foxes worthy after all, even Andrew with all his supposed talent for the game and every inch of his utter disregard for it – it was easy to play like you had everything to lose when you had a little bit more than nothing.

“It actually works in our favour that you’re all the way out here,” Wymack said, as though it hadn’t meant flying them halfway across the country for the pleasure. “No one outside of our team and school board even knows we’re here. We don’t want your face all over the news this summer. We’ve got too much to deal with right now and we don’t want to drag you into the mess until you’re safe and settled at campus. There’s a confidentiality clause in your contract, says you can’t tell anyone you’re ours until the season starts in August.”

Neil looked back to Kevin. He seemed to be looking for something on his face. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Your opinion has been duly noted and dismissed,” Wymack said. “Anything else, or are you going to start signing stuff.”

Josten made them wait a long time for an answer. His attention kept going back to Kevin in a way that sent pinpricks down Andrew’s spine. He wanted to press Josten into the lockers and make him explain why, but he figured if Josten didn’t sign he wouldn’t have to care, and if he did Andrew would have all the time in the world to find out.

Identify threat, eliminate it – that was Andrew’s life, and had been for a long time.

“Well?” Wymack prompted at last, feigning impatience when he’d probably wait all night for a yes.

“I have to talk to my mother,” Josten blurted.

“What for? You’re legal, aren’t you? Your file says you’re nineteen.”

“I still need to ask.”

“She’ll be happy for you.”

“Maybe,” Josten said quietly, in a tone that meant she likely wouldn’t be. Pinpricks, again, but this time because Josten sounded a touch like Andrew’s twin. “I’ll talk to her tonight.”

“We can give you a lift home,” Wymack offered, pushing.

“I’m fine.” Josten was shutting down, shrinking. This was Wymack’s domain, and he seemed to realise it, because he shot Andrew and Kevin both a look and told them to wait in the car.

Andrew waited for Kevin to collect up his papers and then led him out of the lounge. They were halfway to Hernandez’s SUV before he said, “How does it feel?”

“How does what feel?” Kevin asked, brow furrowed like he was deep in thought.

“To meet another person capable of telling you no.”

He remembers every inch of Kevin’s determination and ferocity aimed at recruiting Andrew, just like he remembers everything else. It had been very easy to tell him no when he demanded everything Andrew had – much more so than saying no when he offered something in return.

Giving something for nothing had cost Andrew before. He didn’t intend to make that mistake again.

Kevin’s frown turned to a scowl. “He isn’t like you.”

“He’s nothing like me,” Andrew agreed. No one was – even amongst the Foxes, he was in a league of his own. Renee came the closest, but they were as separated by their beliefs as they were tied together by their shared lack of remorse. Not to mention that Andrew’s smile wasn’t anything at all like Renee’s God-ordained sweetness and light.

“He’s stupid,” Kevin went on, mostly to himself. He tossed his files into the middle of the backseat and climbed in as Andrew took the other side.

“Yet another way he isn’t like me,” Andrew agreed. “But you forget, turning you down doesn’t make him stupid. _Au contraire_.”

The French phrase came butchered out of his mouth, making Kevin wince. He snapped, “He’ll sign.”

“And that’s why he’s stupid,” Andrew said, with teeth. Doors swinging outside cut off Kevin’s response. Andrew looked out of the window to see Josten emerging from the building, on a path that took him straight past the car. His eyes were fixed forward like if he didn’t acknowledge Andrew and Kevin they would ignore him. Or maybe he was just making plans.

Andrew couldn’t resist. He swung the door open as Josten walked past, his smile a taunt. “Too good to play with us, too good to ride with us?”

The look he got in response was frigid, but Josten didn’t reply out loud. Instead he picked up to a jog, the long lope of a born runner. He picked up speed as he headed across the parking lot, stretching out and seemingly heedless of the bag bouncing on his back.

He didn’t look back. Boring.

“Really, Andrew?” Wymack asked, hooking his hand around the top of Andrew’s door. His tone said that he hadn’t forgotten Andrew hitting his new toy.

“I’m trying to make the most of it, because I figure that I won’t see Neil Josten again,” Andrew replied brightly.

“You will,” Wymack said, quirking an eyebrow. “And you better not break him when you do.”

“Want to bet?” Andrew offered. He should have known better than to bet against Wymack, but he had a feeling that Josten’s commitment wouldn’t outlast the night once they left.

“I would put ten on it, but it’s no fun when I know I’ll win,” Wymack replied.

“Oh, I’ve always liked a losing bet,” Andrew said, slamming the door and narrowly missing Wymack’s fingers. His coach knew him well enough that he just chuckled, the sound dulled by the glass between him.

Really, in retrospect, Andrew should have known better.


	2. last look

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy hell, I wasn't expecting a reaction like that! Hope you guys enjoy this update - expect new chapters around once a week going forward :)
> 
> Warning for discussion of drug addiction/withdrawal.

On Friday the twelfth of May, Andrew dressed to match his brother.

Aaron was irritating, but he wasn’t completely stupid. He took a sidelong look from the couch at Andrew, sober as a priest, and said, “Really?”

The question normally would have made Andrew grin even wider. As it was, he just looked back into the not-quite-a-mirror-image face of his brother and waited to see if he would go on. If there was any doubt as to his sobriety, that would have been erased by his ongoing silence – drugged, Andrew could never resist speaking.

“What?” Nicky asked, his cheerful expression melting towards concern. Wymack had tasked him with picking up their newest addition, and he had been halfway to picking up his keys to leave when Andrew had emerged from his bedroom. “Why’re you – oh.”

“I’m going to go collect Neil from the airport,” Andrew explained needlessly. He meant _I’m going to investigate a potential threat_ , and everyone in the room knew it because they knew him.

He was lucky Wymack hadn’t taken him up on that bet, because he would be down ten bucks right now. Already, Josten had proven his first impression wrong – someone who had run like that should have turned and kept running, not signed the contract that would act as a set of shackles for the next five years.

“That can’t be a good idea,” Nicky said. He looked at his watch, mentally doing the math. “You think Neil’s going to feel extra threatened when you spew all over him?”

“That won’t happen,” Andrew replied. And it wouldn’t – if he could get through the entirety of an Exy game, he could make the drive there and back easily. He always knew his own limits. “Kevin.”

“Yes,” Kevin said from the armchair across the room. He’d been using his laptop with the headphones in, but he’d removed them when Andrew came out. He was watching him now, mouth pursed up into a frown.

Andrew tossed him the pill bottle, which he caught in his left hand with a thin wince. “Look after these for me.”

He watched as Kevin put them in his pocket for safekeeping, out of Andrew’s reach for however long. Just the thought was enough to make Andrew’s skin crawl with craving. He forced the sensation down with the ease of practice.

His entire life was this dance between _high-high-high_ and crashing. Only one of those extremes happened on his terms. That was why he could never stop pushing it.

“We need him,” Kevin warned.

“And here I thought we didn’t need anyone but you,” Andrew replied. “Don’t worry, Kevin. I won’t break your new toy. Not unless he gives me a reason to.”

“Don’t get pulled over,” Aaron recommended, his attention already returning to his phone. “You get arrested, you’re going down for good.”

Andrew ignored him. At some point, Aaron was going to notice that he had appropriated his wallet and everything inside it. Andrew had no intention of getting arrested over this little trick, and he had a convenient patsy who he shared a face with to help with that. Keys in hand, he let himself out of the house, the door closing behind him with satisfying slam.

Out in the street, the GS hunched gleaming against the suburban backdrop of Abby’s neighbourhood. Putting the car to rights after Nicky drove always rubbed him the wrong way, but climbing into it did the opposite. He turned the key, the rumble of it coming to life under his hands chasing away the very first symptoms of withdrawal.

It always started off slow, with prickling skin and faint thrills of nausea and the whispering of craving that got louder and louder the more he drew it out. Like riding the crest of a wave that would drown him eventually, blood the salt water in his mouth.

He put his foot down, and let adrenaline drive it out of him for a while.

Upstate International was crowded with the Friday afternoon rush, but Neil Josten wasn’t all that difficult to spot amongst it. His colouring was plain, but there was no disguising the way he moved – he had an athlete’s long and easy stride, cutting capably amongst the crowds with the same bag from Millport over his shoulder

Similarly, he had distinctive features, all angles under the overgrown hash of his hair. Apparently he’d refused to change out with his teammates back in Arizona, but whatever damage he wore under his clothes hadn’t extended to his face. His nose didn’t look like it had been broken even once.

He had the distinctive look of someone trying to appear _less_ , in his plain and oversized clothing and with that terrible hair cut. Andrew wondered if the act worked on anyone at all, with a face like that.

He looked up then and met Andrew’s stare head-on, all whip-quick evaluation. Andrew wondered what he saw in ‘Aaron’ – perhaps he prescribed to the media party line on the two of them. Actually, he could imagine that Neil felt a sense of relief that it was this brother here to meet him and not the other.

Little did he know. Andrew didn’t relish the trickery, but he did like to win, and in his book this counted.

“Neil,” Andrew said as the man himself approached, tasting the name in his mouth. This wasn’t personal, and the distance ‘Josten’ afforded him served them both just fine for now, until ‘Neil’ proved himself an issue. Andrew pointed across the room. “Baggage claim.”

Josten tapped the strap of his bag. “Just this.”

He travelled light, then. Like someone who intended to leave in a hurry.

Andrew turned away in the direction of the exit, leading them out into the damp summer heat. People were clustered at the crosswalk waiting, but Andrew had no intention of joining the crowd – he bulled through it and straight into the street.

Brakes shrieked. Pedestrian-versus-car was probably a quick way to die, but the airport speed limit was low enough the taxi stopped in time, just like he knew it would. Lighting his cigarette was his main priority, well ahead of whatever boring vitriol the driver was yelling behind him and the beat of Josten’s feet as he jogged up behind Andrew.

The GS waited patiently in the lot, glittering under the sun. Andrew clicked the locks, said, “Bag in the trunk,” and dropped himself sideways in the driver’s seat to finish his cigarette. It killed a little of the jittering under his skin, but did nothing for the churning in his gut. Andrew dropped the butt before he made it halfway, but the smoke at least stopped the prickle of his senses overwhelming him as they all turned razor at once.

Thirty minutes. There was a timer in Andrew’s head, and there wasn’t much more left on the clock now. Just enough to see this done.

He swung his legs into the car and started the engine, letting the snarl of it shake through him again. When he tossed Josten a glance, he found him patient in the passenger seat and looking back.

It felt like a first meeting. Andrew felt the corner of his mouth quirk, but it couldn’t have looked anything like a smile. That was fitting, because this wasn’t meant to be a welcome. “Neil Josten. Here for the summer, hm?”

“Yes,” Josten replied.

“That makes five of us, but word is you’re going to stay with Coach.”

“Kevin stays on campus?” There was a faint trace of reservation in his voice.

“Where the court is, Kevin is,” Andrew replied. His disdain was less tracery and more outright. “He can’t exist without it.”

“I didn’t think it was the court Kevin was staying for,” Josten mused.

So that was the belief Josten was nursing. And he seemed to have a lot of opinions on Kevin for someone who had met him once.

Andrew didn’t reply, scooping cash out of the cupholder to hand over to the woman in the booth at the exit. It wasn’t until they joined with the main road that Andrew flicked another look at Josten and said, “I hear you didn’t hit if off with Kevin last month.”

“No one warned me he was going to be there,” he replied. “Maybe you’ll forgive me for not reacting well.”

If that was what he was looking for, then he definitely shouldn’t have come here. “Maybe I won’t. I don’t believe in forgiveness, and it wasn’t me you offended. That’s the second time a recruit has told him to fuck off. If it was possible to dent that arrogance of his, his pride would have shreds through it. Instead he’s losing faith in the intelligence of high school athletes.”

“I’m sure Andrew had his reasons for refusing, same as me.”

Oh, yes, he did. But they weren’t the same as Josten’s – Andrew was willing to bet on that.

“You said you weren’t good enough, but here you are anyway. You think a summer of practices will make that much a difference?” Andrew asked.

“No,” Josten replied. “It was just too hard to say no.”

That had the ring of truth to it. “Coach always knows what to say, hm? It makes it harder on the rest of us, though. Not even Millport should have taken a chance on you.”

“Millport’s too small to care about experience. I had nothing to lose by trying out and they had nothing to gain by refusing me. It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, I guess.” He shrugged broadly.

Andrew asked, with a thread of disdain, “Do you believe in fate?”

“No. Do you?” The look he gave was brief but penetrating. Andrew ignored it.

“Luck, then,” he suggested instead.

“Only the bad sort.”

“We’re flattered by your high opinion of us, of course.” Andrew was the black cat of the Exy world, and he’d smashed enough mirrors for several lifetimes of bad luck. More than enough, even for Foxes.

He slipped into the next lane without bothering to look, ignoring the screeching of horns on three sides in favour of the gap opening in front of him. As he pressed his foot down, Josten looked into the mirror to watch behind them.

“It’s too nice of a car to wreck,” he said sharply.

The likelihood of Josten dying right now was markedly lower than it had been the first time they’d met, but Andrew could see why he would think different. Andrew was still riding just-barely-empty spaces on his path to his exit, but that didn’t stop him from advising, “Don’t be so afraid to die. If you are, you have no place on our court.”

“We’re talking about a sport, not a death match.”

“Same difference. You’re playing for a Class I team with Kevin on your line. People are always willing to bleed for him. You’ve seen the news, I assume.”

Andrew caught another of those sharp looks from the corner of his own eye. Josten said, “I’ve seen it.”

Andrew flicked a hand – whatever little fascination Josten had with Kevin, it paled in comparison to some people. He supposed that he counted in those ranks himself, but there was a difference between getting something from it and doing it just for the purity of somehow serving a Son of Exy.

Josten looked like he was musing the complexities of that in the passenger seat, his mouth fixed in a small frown. Whatever he’d been expecting of the Foxes, it was unlikely they’d meet those expectations. Kevin would be the same, even if Josten carried some of the same brand of hero-worship for the man. Either it was an interest that Kevin himself would disabuse with his harsh demeanour, or a well-concealed obsession that Andrew would deal with himself. But so far, all signs pointed to the first option being the correct one.

Ah, well. Andrew hadn’t lived this long by ignoring his instincts, paranoia included. Shoving Josten into the box labelled _not a threat_ and leaving him for Renee to deal with would make his life much easier.

The other three were waiting in the parking lot of Wymack’s apartment when Andrew pulled into one of the many open spaces. He was first out of the car, while Josten went to the trunk to retrieve his bag. Slotting into his usual spot at Kevin’s side, Andrew forced his face into the shape of a grin.

As Josten rounded the car with his bag back on his shoulder, Nicky stepped up to greet him with a hand outstretched. “Hey. Welcome to South Carolina. Flight go okay?”

“It was fine,” Neil replied, allowing Nicky to tug him up onto the curb.

“I’m Nicky. Andrew and Aaron’s cousin, backliner extraordinaire.”

Josten looked from him to Andrew and Aaron, and back again. “By blood?”

Nicky laughed brightly. “Don’t look it, right? Take after my mom. Dad ‘rescued’ her from Mexico during some la-di-dah ministry trip.” That was one way to put it, certainly. Luther Hemmick wasn’t known for saving people – only their souls. Or trying to. Nicky jerked a thumb at their little pack of three. “You already met them, right? Aaron, Andrew, Kevin? Coach was supposed to be here to let you in, but he had to head up to the stadium real quick. The ERC called him, probably with more BS about how we haven’t publicized our sub yet. In the meantime you’re stuck with us, but we’ve got Coach’s keys. Suitcases in the trunk?”

Josten tapped the strap of his bag again. “It’s just this.”

Nicky threw a glance back at them. “He packs light. I wish I could travel like that, but hell if I ain’t materialistic.”

“Materialistic is just a start,” Aaron said flatly, following along as Nicky prodded Josten towards the door.

“This is where Coach lives,” he said, as though that wasn’t blatantly obvious. “He makes all the money, so he gets to live in a place like this while we poor people couch surf.”

“You have a nice car for someone who thinks he’s poor,” Josten replied.

“That’s why we’re poor.”

“Aaron’s mother bought it for us with her life insurance money,” Andrew said. His voice was a blade for his brother, who knew exactly how sober he was even as Josten assumed this was just another quirk of an athlete out of his mind on drugs. “It’s no surprise she had to die to be worth anything.”

“Easy,” Nicky told him, but he was looking at Aaron. Typical – Nicky’s favourite was the ‘sane’ Minyard, too.

“Easy, easy,” Andrew mimicked, shrugging. “Why bother? It’s a cruel world, right Neil? You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”

“It’s not the world that’s cruel. It’s the people in it,” Neil replied. There was no righteousness in his tone, only blood-bought experience.

“Oh, so true,” Andrew agreed. It was the last thing said as they rode up to Wymack’s floor in the elevator, but he could see Josten looking at their surroundings and feel Aaron’s blood boiling.

His clock was ticking down inexorably. Pick-pocketing Kevin was beginning to look unusually attractive – so was holding a knife to his throat and threatening him until he handed the bottle over. Not that it would take that, seeing as Kevin wasn’t fond of his leashed monster like this.

Once Aaron had unlocked the apartment door and pushed it open, Nicky waved Josten in. “Here you go, Neil. Home sweet home, if anything involving Coach can be called sweet.”

Josten froze solid in the doorway, eyes turned forward but gone. The moment dragged on before he blinked back, instantly looking to them like he knew he was caught. Rabbit in a trap – that was what he looked like, ready to dash himself to death on the bars of the cage before giving himself over. Maybe like his heart was going to give out in shock.

It was a hell of a reaction, considering it was over simply walking through a doorway. Andrew stepped up beside him, half-wondering if a hole had opened up in the floor in front of Josten, and that seemed to mobilise him even as he met Andrew’s gaze head on again.

He was a rabbit in a trap, but Andrew was a wolf and he knew it. After one more moment, he stepped forwards through the door and walked down the hall. He took the first door off of it, into the living room.

“What was that all about?” Nicky asked Aaron in soft German as they followed him.

“Maybe he was savouring the moment,” Aaron replied drily.

“No. That was pure fight or flight. What the hell did you say to him, Andrew?”

Andrew didn’t bother to answer. That wasn’t least because his hands were finally starting to shake, a death-knell for whatever thin hold he’d been keeping. He turned away as Nicky suggested a tour that would avoid the kitchen at all costs.

The bench was stacked high with dirty dishes but the sink was clear. That was convenient – Andrew had plenty of room to rest his elbows as he retched into it, bringing up nothing but bile. He’d skipped lunch, knowing that it would likely come to this.

The shaking in his hands was spreading. As he was rinsing his mouth from the tap, a box thumped down next to him.

“I heard these are good when you’re sick,” Kevin said. It was a box of saltine crackers.

“Oh, Kevin, I don’t think those kind of crackers will cure what ails me,” Andrew replied. He straightened, clenching his hands around the rim of the sink hard enough his knuckles turned white, hard enough the shivering stopped for a moment. “Booze would be better.”

A bottle of whiskey landed beside the cracker box, jostling a stack of plates. Andrew would like to think his lot had been a terrible influence on Kevin, but the truth was that he’d always been good at finding alcohol.

He cracked the bottle and took a generous swig, turning the sting in his throat to a burn. The whiskey threatened to make an immediate reappearance, but Andrew kept it down with will alone. Another few mouthfuls and the shaking retreated to his fingers.

Andrew turned to Kevin, finding him as unimpressed as always.

“Was it worth it?” he asked.

Andrew had lost his smile at some point, but it didn’t feel entirely unreachable as he said, “Let me worry about that,” and patted Kevin’s cheek with the hand that wasn’t holding the whiskey. That meant the alcohol was kicking in to ease the crash, convincing his body it was still okay right now. He just needed a little more time.

Kevin reached into his pocket and pulled the pill bottle from his pocket. Andrew’s attention narrowed down onto it instantly like it was sucking in the light.

“Just take them,” Kevin suggested, rattling it lightly. The sound of it alone made Andrew’s jaw clench so hard pain shot down his spine as far as the middle of his back.

“Just put them away,” he replied. His voice came out dark, like distant thunder. Sober, there was no play in Andrew – just the seeming of it. “Before I make you swallow all of them. Including the bottle.”

Anxiety aside, Kevin still had a little of the Fox death wish. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have rolled his eyes as he hid the bottle away again.

“This bottle will do,” Andrew said, gesturing with the whiskey, rather than saying _give them to me now_. Self-control tasted like blood from the inside of his cheek and expensive alcohol, it turned out: Andrew wondered what Luther would make of that.

He turned and followed the sound of voices down to Wymack’s office and paused in the doorway. “Success.”

“Ready, Neil?” Nicky asked. “We should probably beat it before Coach shows up.”

Josten’s eyes flickered from the bottle to Nicky and then to Andrew’s face. He pointed at the whiskey. “Why? Is this a robbery in progress?”

The flicker of entertainment bolstered Andrew’s grin. So what if his eyes were dead over it – people rarely looked close enough to notice. “Maybe it is. Will you tell Coach on us? So much for being a team player. I guess you really are a Fox.”

“No,” Josten said, “but I would ask him why you’re not medicated.”

So. The rabbit was smarter than he looked. The others all blinked at him in startled silence, but Andrew had no room in him for surprise.

“Am I crazy? Did I just see that happen?” Nicky stumbled out in German to Aaron, wide-eyed.

“Don’t look at me,” Aaron replied.

Josten’s eyes flickered between them, and he said, “I’d prefer an answer in English.”

Andrew dragged his thumb across the curved line of his mouth, feeling it revert like magic as he let go. “That sounds like an accusation, but I didn’t lie to you.”

“Omission is the easiest way to lie. You could have corrected me.”

“Could have, didn’t. Figure it out for yourself,” Andrew recommended.

“I did,” Josten replied. He tapped his fingers to his temple in a jaunty salute that sat strange against his grim expression. “Better luck next time.”

Maybe smarter wasn’t the right word. And Andrew had been just about to write Josten off as harmless. _Oh, this could be a problem._

“Oh,” came out of Andrew’s mouth. “Oh, you might actually turn out to be interesting. For a little while, at least. I don’t think the amusement will last. It never does.”

It would last until Andrew broke him, or someone else did. They tended to become boring after that. Problem, meet solution.

“Don’t mess with me,” Josten warned.

“Or what?”

Andrew never got to hear whatever lame threat Josten could summon up, because the front doorknob rattled. Saved by the bell, it seemed – Andrew pasted his smile back on. As he turned to Kevin, Kevin was already moving towards him, taking the whiskey bottle from him and disappearing it.

“Hi Coach,” Andrew called. Fake mania tasted bright on his tongue – Josten might not notice the difference, but Wymack would.

“Do you have any idea how much I hate coming home and finding you in my apartment?” Wymack demanded from the door. As a matter of fact, Andrew did – he’d heard it before. On the multiple other occasions he had broken in to the apartment. He stepped into the hallway with Kevin behind him, leaving the others in the office.

“I didn’t break anything this time,” he said. Wymack grimaced at him from the front door.

“I’ll believe that after I’ve checked everything I own,” he replied, slamming the door and walking down the hall towards them. He stepped around Andrew to get into the office, careful as always not to touch.

He gave Josten a careful once over. “I see you made it all right. I was pretty sure Nicky’s driving was going to get you killed.”

More likely he thought they would have already started in with the maiming and traumatising since they’d arrived at the apartment. Josten didn’t dob Andrew in though, saying simply, “I’ve survived worse.”

“There is no surviving worse driving than that idiot’s. There’s just open casket or closed,” Wymack replied, which was true. Nicky was a reactionary driver who suffered from the occasional bout of nerves, making him liable to do something stupid when surprised.

“Hey, hey. That’s not fair,” Nicky protested.

“Life’s not fair, tweedle-dumb. Get over it. What are you still doing here?”

“Leaving,” Andrew cut in. He couldn’t stay with Wymack much longer without giving himself away. “Goodbye. Is Neil coming too?”

“Going where?”

“Jeez, Coach, what kind of people do you think we are?” Nicky asked, mock-aggrieved.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

“We’re taking him to the court,” Aaron said. “We can give him a lift to Abby’s after. You didn’t need him, did you?”

“Just to give him this,” Wymack said, and threw a set of keys that Josten snatched easily from the air. He explained what the keys were for, but Andrew was busy watching the way Josten folded them into his palm. His grip looked like it would be hard enough to break skin, but some tension seemed to drain out of him even as his fist stayed firmly closed.

“Thank you,” he said to Wymack. “I will.”

“Blatant favouritism, Coach,” Andrew said, both because silence from him was suspicious and because he didn’t want Josten relaxed just yet.

“If you ever went to the court of your own volition, maybe I’d give you a set too,” Wymack replied. “Since I don’t see that happening anytime this lifetime or next, you can shut up and share with Kevin.”

“Oh, joy, joy,” Andrew said, and meant every whisper of the sarcasm. “My excited face begins now. Can we go?”

“Get out,” Wymack said. Andrew took that as the order it was, leaving with Kevin and Aaron in tow. Those two were at least quiet while they waited for Nicky and Josten to catch up.

Nicky was first to emerge, but he was alone. “Neil’s coming. He’s just finding somewhere to leave his bag.”

The way he said that didn’t indicate any suspicion, but Andrew had seen the way Josten clasped that bag to him back in Millport. He didn’t care much about material possessions, but he knew what protectiveness looked like. If he wanted to know more about their newest addition, he’d have to get his hands on it.

A few minutes later Josten slipped out the door into the hall, sans bag and sliding a key onto his ring as he walked towards them. Andrew turned away and headed for the elevator, leaving him until last so that when they walked into the elevator car he ended up in the centre with the others at the walls in a loose ring.

Surrounded by monsters, nowhere to run. Josten glanced once at each of the others – evaluating, or perhaps looking for an ally that he wouldn’t find here - and then met Andrew’s stare dead on. He was stiff like he thought he could hold his own in a fight.

He didn’t have a chance. Andrew stepped close and feinted for his keys once, twice, and then had him right where he wanted with the doors against his back. Resignation flickered over Josten’s face as he put his key ring into his pocket, a movement Andrew almost felt the imprint of as they stood toe to toe.

“How nice to meet you, Neil,” Andrew said lazily. As always sober, it was violence that gave his voice any character at all. “It will be a while before we see each other again.”

Josten – Neil’s – eyes at this distance were clear and not as afraid as they should have been. The corner of his mouth barely quirked as he replied, “Somehow I don’t think I’m that lucky.”

“Like this.” Andrew waved a hand between their faces, at the absence of his smile. “It will have to wait until June. Abby threatened to revoke our stadium rights for the summer if we break you sooner than that. Can’t have that, can we? Kevin would cry. No worries. We’ll wait until everyone’s here and Abby has too many other Foxes to worry about. Then we’ll throw you a welcome party you won’t forget.”

That wasn’t quite true – more likely it would be one he wouldn’t remember.

“You need to rethink your persuasion techniques. They suck,” Neil said.

The elevator was slowing, caught in the grip of gravity that never failed to pull at Andrew’s bones. He set his hand against Neil’s chest, feeling the fear-quick beat of his heart under his shirt. That, at least, wasn’t a lie. “I don’t need to be persuasive. You’ll just learn to do what I say.”

The doors slipped opened behind him, and Andrew shoved against Neil so he stumbled backwards out of the way. Andrew bulled into him again as he stepped out himself, all along his side like a brand. The effect of it on Neil was satisfying – he barely kept his feet. He might have been taller, but Andrew had the considerable advantage of weight and power.

It was an advantage in a fight, at least. Andrew doubted it would come to that, though: Neil wasn’t a fighter.

Andrew’s clock was a whisper off zero – he left Neil behind and strode out into the bright sunlight in the parking lot with Kevin at his back.

 


	3. intensity

Like always, he crashed and then came back all live wire electric.

When he emerged from the lounge into the shadows of the court beyond the lights, Kevin was there with his attention fixed on his new pet project. The three inside the plexiglass walls were brightly coloured blurs to Andrew’s skipping attention span – Kevin’s expression of consternation was what caught him.

Andrew dropped himself onto the home bench, exchanging the bottle of whiskey for a spare ball on the floor. “Disappointed already?”

Kevin didn’t spare him glance as he twisted his racquet in his hands. He might have talked a big game about refusing to step onto the court unless he was alone or with only Andrew, but he was a liar. A desperate and obsessed liar. He said, “I’m not disappointed.”

“Not yet,” Andrew replied, lying back on the bench. The ball alone was smooth and cool against his skin, but the smack of it landing in his hands when he threw and caught it again set his skin to tingling. He repeated the motion again, and then again, and again.

“If you practiced with that level of dedication you would already be on Court’s radar,” Kevin noted without looking at him.

“Shut up,” Andrew replied, a cheerful threat. The chance of him bothering to get up and follow through at this point was non-existent, but Kevin went quiet even so.

Andrew didn’t move until the court door swung open and closed, pushing himself back upright. His hand went to the bottle of whiskey as he did so, twisting off the cap. Everything was too sharp – alcohol was as good for dulling the edges of the first flush of his medication as it was for the comedown. Otherwise it would be a race to see who bled first.

“About time,” he said. His smile was no more genuine now than it had been in Wymack’s apartment, but at this point it was totally unshakeable. “Nicky, it’s so boring waiting on you.”

“We’re done now,” Nicky said, reaching for the bottle. “About time you stop that, don’t you think? Abby’s going to beat me senseless if she realises you’ve been drinking.”

It was a half-hearted effort to take it from Andrew, aborted entirely when he replied, “Doesn’t sound like my problem.”

Nicky wasn’t the right kind of brave to take Andrew on. He looked to Aaron like the other Minyard might be any help at all, then mimed taking a bullet to the brain – _tacky, tacky;_ _doesn’t he know what he’s dealing with? –_ when Aaron kept right on walking. Giving up, Nicky followed him out.

Neil looked at Kevin and paused, holding his gaze with genuine intensity. His face was beaded with sweat, but he wasn’t blowing, which meant he was probably fitter than Aaron and Nicky. All that running had to be good for something.

“This is going to be a long season,” Kevin commented. He was looking back at Neil like he wasn’t enthused by what he saw.

“I told you I wasn’t ready,” Neil reminded him.

“You also said you wouldn’t play with me, but here you are.”

Neil didn’t reply to that. Andrew watched with vague interest as Kevin stepped close and wound his fingers into the netting of Neil’s racquet, tugging like he would take it. He had nearly a foot on Neil and could have easily wrenched it from his hands, but Neil held his ground. Obsessive, meet the walking definition of the term ‘death grip’.

They were a matched pair, and there was an intensity between them that Kevin always wore but that Andrew had never seen answered like this. Kevin said, “If you won’t play with me, you’ll play for me. You’re never going to get there on your own, so give your game to me.”

Such a vague promise. Neil seemed to recognise that. “Where is ‘there’?”

“If you can’t figure that out there’s no helping you,” Kevin replied. It was rather rich, coming from the man who’d sketched out a full range of glittering promises in his attempt to tempt Andrew. Maybe he’d learned from his mistakes after all.

Now it was Neil’s turn to look unimpressed. Kevin reached up and covered his eyes with his hand. Neil didn’t flinch, but the way Kevin’s broad palm looked against the paler shape of his face caught Andrew’s attention. He took a slug from the bottle in his hand to chase that away.

“Forget the stadium,” Kevin advised. “Forget the Foxes and your useless high school team and your family. See it the only way it really matters, where Exy is the only road to take. What do you see?”

Whatever Kevin was hoping for, it probably wasn’t the barest signs of bitter amusement that played over Neil’s face before he forced his expression smooth again. Kevin responded with a hard tug of the racquet net that rocked Neil on his feet. “Focus.”

Neil was quiet for a long time. He didn’t smile again before he said, “You.”

Kevin tugged again, and this time Neil released his grip. He removed his hand at the same time, and Neil blinked at the lights. “Tell me I can have your game.”

“Take it,” Neil said, not quite a challenge, but also not quite not.

Kevin shot Andrew a look, victory subtle in his expression. “Neil understands.”

“Congratulations are in order, I suppose! Since I have none to give, I will tell the others to respond appropriately,” Andrew replied, his voice brash and bright to his own ears as he got up. More whiskey, more whiskey. It was always rougher when he went without for so long. “Neil! Hello. We meet again.”

“We met earlier,” Neil said, wary like he thought he was really seeing the depths of Andrew’s so-called insanity now. Or maybe he just suspected Andrew’s memory was shit. “If this is another trick, just let it go.”

Like perhaps they wanted him to think there was a third Minyard around. Andrew grinned at the idea. “Don’t be so suspicious. You saw me take my medicine. If I hadn’t, I’d be keeled over somewhere by now puking from the withdrawal. As it is, I might puke from all the fanaticism going around.”

“He’s high,” Kevin explained. “He tells me when he’s sober, so I always know. How did you figure it out?”

Neil shrugged with one shoulder. “They’re twins, but they’re not the same. One of them hates your obsession with Exy while the other couldn’t care less.”

Andrew could feel Kevin’s attention shift to him, but he didn’t look away from Neil. He laughed. “He’s a comedian, too? An athlete and a comic and a student. How multitalented. What a grand addition to the Fox line. I can’t wait to find out what else he can do. Perhaps we should throw a talent show and find out? But later. Kevin, we’re going. I need food.”

Andrew wasn’t supposed to hate Kevin’s obsession. He wasn’t supposed to care. But he certainly wasn’t stupid enough to not realise which twin Neil was referring to. Unfortunately, neither was Kevin. Kevin chose silence over saying anything, though, handing Neil’s racquet back so they could walk through to the locker room.

The other two were already in the showers, but Neil sat down on one of the benches like he intended to wait.

“We’re not taking you to Abby’s like that,” Kevin snapped. She’d presume they’d made him ride over in the trunk of the car. Andrew considered that as an option and then put it aside. It was too soon for that just yet. “Wash up.”

“I won’t shower with the team,” Neil replied. “I’ll wait, and if you don’t want to wait on me, just go on ahead. I’ll find my way there from here.”

They’d have an even bigger problem with Abby if she thought they’d forced Neil into running across town. Andrew didn’t care about that, though. He asked, all smiles, “Nicky going to be a problem for you?”

“It’s not about Nicky. It’s about my privacy.”

“Get over it. You can’t be shy if you’re going to be a star,” Kevin said, because he was actually very stupid and hadn’t caught on just yet. Andrew leaned over to him like he was going to whisper something to him, but didn’t drop his voice.

“He has to hide his ouches, Kevin,” he explained, faux-concerned. “I broke into Coach’s cabinet and read his files. Bruises, you think, or scars? I think scars, too. Can’t be bruises if his parents aren’t around to beat him, right?”

“What did you just say?” Neil demanded, the colour draining from his face.

“I don’t care,” Kevin told Andrew directly, not even bothering to throw Neil a look. Andrew ignored him in favour of Neil.

“Showers aren’t communal here. Coach put in stalls when he built the stadium. The board wouldn’t pay for it – they didn’t see the point – so it came out of Coach’s own pocket. See for yourself if you don’t believe me. You don’t believe me, do you? I know you don’t. That’s probably for the best.”

“You had no right to read my file!” And he did look awfully betrayed. Perhaps he expected better of Andrew. What a waste of time that was.

Andrew merely laughed. “Relax, relax, relax. I made that up. We were locked in Coach Arizona’s office to watch your game on the local TV station, and he said our secret meet-and-greet would be easy since you always shower alone last. Told Coach he still couldn’t find your parents. Coach asked if they’d be a problem, and Arizona said he didn’t know because he hadn’t met them a single time. Said they spent a lot of time commuting to their jobs in Phoenix and no time at all checking in on you. But I’m right, aren’t I?”

Regular people might have needed more clues than that. Andrew didn’t. Neither would the rest of the Foxes, except Kevin, who didn’t care as long as it didn’t affect performance. What Andrew was looking for was an explosion, but he didn’t get one – Neil opened his mouth and then closed it again, breathing in slow. None of the same fiery attitude he’d shown back in Millport. So disappointing.

After a moment he broke off from staring at Andrew – and oh, there _was_ a taste of violence in his eyes, well-concealed unless you were good at searching for it – and turned away towards the showers. Andrew followed him quietly, watching him pause in the doorway to glance through and determine that Andrew had indeed been telling the truth.

“Weird, right?” Andrew asked, nearly against the back of Neil’s neck. Surprised, Neil threw an elbow behind him aimed at Andrew’s ribs. Andrew caught it to halt it before releasing it with a laugh and retreating. “Coach never explained it. Maybe he thought we’d need to grieve our disastrous losses in private. Only the best for his rising stars, right?” Boyd was probably the type to cry in the shower. Kevin would need the stalls to keep his panic attacks private at least once this season – Andrew had money on that.

“I didn’t think Wymack recruited rising stars,” Neil muttered, pushing by Andrew to go back to the locker room.

“No. The Foxes will never amount to anything. Try telling Dan that, though, and she’ll box your ears.” He picked up his whiskey from where he’d sat it on the bench. He was done – this was too easy, and he was getting bored. “Kevin, car.”

           

* * *

 

This summer was different to the others – Andrew was used to scheduling his days around the needs of others or the purpose-free nothingness that he lived with outside of that, but Kevin was a new kind of needy. That meant that, right now, Andrew’s days revolved around Exy too.

He didn’t like it. But he’d made a deal, and he intended to see it through. For a start, he was very vaguely interested to see if Kevin could give him what he’d promised.

When they arrived at the court to practice on Neil’s second day, Neil was already there changed out and waiting for them. Kevin pushed Andrew in the direction of the goal immediately with a warning to pay attention, which for once earned a laugh from Andrew rather than a knife.

They started with drills, familiar as breathing after a year on the Foxhole Court even with Kevin’s newer additions. It seemed to have fallen to Nicky to teach Neil the ones he didn’t know – Kevin seemed to be ignoring their new addition in favour of practicing himself, as though he didn’t do enough of that already. The only sign he was paying any attention to the others at all was his occasional brutal corrections.

Drills were boring by nature, but the expenditure of energy was enough to keep Andrew’s focus at first. He effortlessly turned aside Nicky and Aaron’s half-hearted efforts on goal, and Neil’s determined but poor ones. Kevin was more difficult, but the level of concentration it would have taken to shut him out was more than he was willing to dedicate to the task.

With Andrew, it was very rarely  _I can’t_. It was always _I won’t._

After an hour and a half of drills, Kevin sent the others off for a water break. He didn’t afford Andrew the same privilege, instead stepping back up to the foul line as soon as the door closed with his bucket of balls.

“How do you know I’m not thirsty, too?” Andrew asked, batting a ball aside but failing to get another before it landed in the goal.

“I don’t care,” Kevin replied, smacking another ball Andrew’s way. Andrew hit it out of the way, sending it careening across the court.

“Cruel and unusual. Are you going to chain me to the floor in goal next?”

“I would if I thought it would make you get off your ass and play,” Kevin replied. Another throw, another score. Another throw, and Andrew denied him. Another, another. It was exceptionally boring, especially as Kevin looked at him less like a person than he did like an inanimate object in his path to the goal. Andrew’s concentration wavered and cracked through.

“You aren’t even trying now,” Kevin huffed, after his eighth consecutive shot that Andrew missed.

“Keen observation skills!” Andrew told him, pointing at him with his racquet. “I knew you had some in there somewhere. Still waters do run deep.”

Kevin rolled his eyes, turning away to collect up the balls rolling loose over the floor. “Go and drag the others back. They’re probably wasting time.” 

Andrew clapped a hand over his smiling mouth in mock-horror. “We can’t have that. One moment, I’ll retrieve your disciples for you.” He dropped his racquet onto the floor just to see Kevin flinch at the noise and left it there.

He slammed the locker room door open, drawing the attention of all three wayward Foxes. “Kevin wants to know what’s taking you so long. Did you get lost?”

“Nicky’s scheming to rape Neil,” Aaron replied, shooting Andrew a cool disinterested look. “There are a couple flaws in his plan he needs to work out first, but he’ll get there sooner or later.”

Nicky never did have a very good idea about consent. Years with Andrew and he hadn’t learned that lesson yet – perhaps it was time to change that.

Neil looked irritated and a little ruffled by whatever he’d said, but Andrew’s brain was very, very good at imagining him held down and struggling. A kid he couldn’t possibly care less about, but that was still the trigger of a gun held to Andrew’s head that Nicky had just pulled.

“You’re such an asshole,” Nicky told Aaron, frowning as he headed towards the door and Andrew.

“Wow, Nicky,” Andrew said. The words buzzed in his mouth, in his ears. “You start early.”

“Can you really blame me?” Nicky glanced back at Neil as if to make his point.

It was a mistake. He really should have known better than that.

Andrew caught the fabric of his jersey in one hand and hurled him against the wall, earning himself a grunt of expelled air. Nicky didn’t move with Andrew that close, didn’t touch him – he wasn’t that stupid. Not quite.

“Hey, Nicky. Don’t touch him, you understand?” Andrew advised in almost playful German, the language his cousin had taught them. He didn’t, after all, want Neil to get the wrong idea. That Andrew was protecting him, for example.

“You know I’d never hurt him. If he says yes-”

Andrew didn’t know that. “I said no.”

“Jesus, you’re greedy. You already have Kevin. Why does it-”

Ah. So he thought this was misplaced jealousy. Except not, because Nicky thought he was straight, and mistook his protection for possessiveness all the time. He was digging himself into a hole, and it was the work of nothing to press a knife into the tender skin stretched between ribs under Nicky’s jersey.

Fox orange wouldn’t look very good with blood red, but that eyesore was a price Andrew would pay if he had to. “Shh, Nicky, shh. Why the long face? It’s going to be okay.”

Nicky was afraid. That was good. Fear was the best teacher for a lesson like this. Andrew preferred death – it was a more effective preventative measure – but even he knew that might be a step too far for this situation.

Probably. He probably knew that.

“Hey. That’s enough,” Neil said from behind Andrew, which was either surefire proof that he had a death wish, or that he had no idea how to mind his own business. Both, perhaps.

“Quiet,” Nicky replied. The point of the knife rode the subtle movements of him speaking, even though he was barely breathing. “Quiet. It’s fine.”

“Hey.” Or maybe Neil was misguidedly moral and upstanding. That would make him a rarity amongst Foxes, all of who were used to doing whatever it took to survive. “Are we playing or what? Kevin’s waiting.”

That name broke the hold on Andrew, his attention wavering off of Nicky. He looked to Neil, taking in the intent set of his face. _He_ didn’t look afraid – he should have. He would.

“Oh, you’re right. Let’s go or we’ll never hear the end of it,” Andrew told him. This time, the electricity was a little bit duller in his mouth. _Careful, careful._

His knuckles complained as he released Nicky and turned away. The knife was back in its sheath against his spine before he’d reached the door.

The others were slower to follow. Probably discussing how impossible and uncontrollable Andrew was, but that wasn’t anything Andrew wasn’t accustomed to. They’d barely caught up with him at Kevin’s side when Kevin flicked his fingers at them. “Aaron is with me. Nicky and Andrew get the child. Two-man team scrimmage with an empty away goal.”

“I’m not a child. You’re only a year older than I am,” Neil said pointlessly. He didn’t realise that Kevin was referring to his general uselessness on the court rather than his age. The Sons of Exy apparently aged in dog years – easy to do, when you’d had a racquet shoved into your hands when you could barely walk.

“Shouldn’t Andrew be with you and Aaron? Then Neil can practice shooting on him,” Nicky suggested.

Kevin hadn’t deigned to even look at Neil when he spoke, but he turned a bored look on Nicky at that. “If I thought he could make it to the goal, I would have set it up that way.”

“Them’s fighting words,” Nicky said, flashing Neil a grin. “Bring it, kid.”

They took their places on the court, and Andrew took the ball to serve it. Wearing his glove, he didn’t get the cool impression of it in his palm, but the brutal crack of it impacting his racquet was better anyway. It flew down towards the other end of the court, with Neil after it.

Kevin didn’t move. It appeared they were sharing dealer duties, or Kevin was sick of his new pet already, because he was the one to brutally steal the ball with a move that Andrew remembered from studying Raven videos last season. The stick clattered straight out of Neil's hands, and the ball went flying.

Kevin scooped it up and turned. Nicky moved to intercept, but he was too slow – Kevin dodged him, lifted his racquet to line it up, and threw.

Andrew didn’t move. The ball hit the goal eight inches above his left shoulder, the rebound missing him and rolling away across the floor. He cast the goal lines a glance when they lit up, but there with just Kevin in front of him there was far more entertainment in remaining right where he was than stopping the balls.

“You could at least try,” Kevin growled.

“I could, couldn’t I? Maybe next time!” Andrew chirped back, adjusting his racquet so it propped him up more comfortably, all show.

Watching Neil struggle for forty minutes was so boring he nearly dozed off in the goal. Kevin was the only source of entertainment as he got more and more irritated, right up until he called for a halt and sent the backliners off the court.

Once the door was closed again, Kevin dragged Neil over by the grate of his helmet and stopped him in front of the goal at the foul line. Andrew straightened, seeing where this was going – he couldn’t look forward to it, but if there was anything he enjoyed it was denying people. Neil, he thought, would be more entertaining to deny than anyone besides Kevin.

“Ball,” Kevin commanded, catching it easily when Andrew tossed it to him. He pressed it hard into Neil’s body armour until he took it. “You stay here and fire on Andrew until he’s tired. Maybe you’ll score once.”

His tone said that he doubted that. Andrew laughed. “Uh oh. This won’t end well.”

Neil stiffened at that, the line of his shoulders going taut as he went for the bucket of balls in the corner. He dumped it at first-fourth and took his spot, his attention abruptly turning entirely to Andrew.

Too much on Andrew. That was a mistake offence often made with him – they treated him like he was huge, like his reach was impossible, just because they knew that he was good at this. That meant that they fired close around his body, as though that would stop him if he didn’t want to be stopped. Neil threw a ball aimed four inches away from his ribcage on his left, but it never got that close – with a swing, he cleared the shot all the way down the court.

It bounced off the far wall. Andrew knew Kevin was watching – he wondered if he’d be pleased, or grinding his teeth in frustration.

Neil turned to look at it, then picked up the next ball and threw all over again.

Andrew could say one thing for Neil: he was determined. Bloodily so, to the point of pain and then past it. Unfortunately for him, stubbornness or poor survival skills wouldn't serve him well as a Fox. Neil was the kind of animal that Darwinism would have seen wiped out.

He wondered as Neil’s shots got more and more wayward if Kevin would step in. However, if he’d cared enough to preserve his sub’s arms, he would have told Neil to shoot on Andrew until _Neil_ got tired. Andrew was high; he could do this all day.

Eventually, Neil took a swing and accidentally threw his racquet as well. It slid pathetically across the floor to a halt, but Andrew’s focus was on the ball that just barely made it within his reach. He batted it straight back at Neil, watching dispassionately as he got his arms up barely in time to avoid it hitting him in his face. When he dropped his arms, he shot Andrew a glare.

“Let’s go,” Andrew said. “Tick tock. I won’t wait forever for you.”

Neil went for the racquet, and got it as far his shoulder height before he lost it again. It clattered to the floor at his feet, and the expression on his face was hysterical. So affronted, like he couldn’t believe his body was betraying him.

“Oh no. I think Neil’s in trouble,” Andrew said on the edge of a laugh.

On the third try, Neil attempted another shot on goal that failed pathetically. So, so stubborn, and for what? Impressing Kevin? Or Andrew, perhaps? Either way, he was failing – Andrew was impossible to impress, and he couldn’t see Kevin’s expression through the plexiglass, but he knew he’d be wearing that scowl again.

“Can you or can’t you?” Andrew enquired. He didn’t have all day to watch this.

Neil crouched down by his fallen racquet. It looked like he might be contemplating lying down beside it. “I’m done.”

Truly pathetic. Andrew walked out of the goal to meet him, resting his foot lightly on the racquet. Neil tried to pull it from under Andrew’s shoe, and failed. His attempt at pushing Andrew back, hand to his shin guard, was even more useless.

“Get off my racquet,” he snarled.

“Make me?” Andrew offered, hands held out. “Try, anyway.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Neil replied. The look he shot Andrew was venomous, but he’d have to do better than that to win here.

Andrew laughed. “Such fierce words from such a little creature. You’re not very bright. Typical of a jock.”

“Hypocrite.”

Not quite true. Andrew’s sense of self-preservation wasn’t anything to write home about, but he was a damn sight smarter than someone dashing himself over and over against a brick wall. In this scenario, Andrew was the wall. Just like normal. He gave Neil a thumbs-up and a grin for effort, shoving past him on his way to the door. Neil, unbalanced, put his hand out to save himself but still ended up on the floor on his back.

He hadn’t moved by the time Andrew let the door close behind him. Kevin was waiting by the bench, arms crossed and gaze still focussed on Neil. His expression was written all over with distaste. Whether it was for Neil’s skill or his stamina, Andrew didn’t know and also didn’t care.

“I thought you _didn’t_ want me to break him,” Andrew said to him, earning himself a sour look.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Kevin replied. “Just don’t make it permanent.”

That wasn’t Andrew’s forte, but he could make it work.


	4. game, set, match

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your comments! I don't have time to reply to them all, but I appreciate every single one and I need them to live, so thanks again <3

Each day was the same – sleep until Kevin’s neuroses dragged them both out of bed, afternoon scrimmage that Andrew sat out of as much as he could, dinner with Abby and then back to the Foxhole Court to watch Kevin try to hit the same spot over and over until he couldn’t anymore. Wednesdays Andrew saw Betsy, but a year into their acquaintance that was fairly familiar too.

Time was circular. The only glaring abnormality in their schedule was Neil Josten, who after a few weeks of Kevin’s tender love and care was a seething wreck of frustration and muscle pain. They saw less of him than they might have, seeing as he was staying with Wymack, but he still seemed ever-present even so.

It was unsurprising, then, that he would show up and crash Kevin’s obsessive insomniac night practices. Andrew heard the door close and stiffened, shaking off the slow drag down to sleep for an instant, but relaxed again when a familiar slim silhouette crept between the rows of stadium seating and paused to watch.

Andrew, unnoticed, took the opportunity to watch him. He hadn’t done anything yet to prove himself a proper threat. He was just a niggle that Andrew couldn’t satisfy, like a loose tooth he couldn’t quit probing.

One that he couldn’t satisfy _yet_.

He would. But waiting left him with too much time to think, always a curse, and right now Neil kept catching his attention just like this, like something shiny in the corner of his eye.

Neil shifted his weight. “Won’t you play with him?”

“No,” Andrew replied.

Neil left him empty air to elaborate, and when he didn’t continued, “I think he’d benefit more if you did.”

“And?”

Neil turned, slow and searching until he found Andrew’s perch on the stairs a few rows up. His gaze was considering – this was the first time Andrew had been anything close to sober since he’d picked Neil up from the airport, and Andrew could see that realisation of that dart across his face. He scanned Andrew from top to toe before zeroing on the bands on his forearms.

Andrew hooked two fingers against the skin of his let wrist, closing on the hilt of the slim knife and pulling it free. It glittered briefly under the lights, there and then gone again as he did it. A show – he wore the bands for a purpose that long sleeves couldn’t quite accommodate, and he wanted Neil to know that.

“Is that your slow attempt at suicide or do you actually have sheathes built into those?” Neil asked.

High, Andrew would have laughed. Nearly sober, he said, “Yes.”

“That’s not the one you tried to cut Nicky with. How many knives do you carry?” An ability to differentiate between knives wasn’t a rarity amongst Foxes, but still interesting even so. Not least because it meant Neil had been relaxed enough at the sight of that one to note its dimensions rather than the usual reaction of _holy fuck a knife._

“Enough,” Andrew said. One each against his wrists, one at his back, one or two in a pocket, stashed in the waistband of his jeans or his belt, boot knives – variety really was the spice of life.

“What happens when a referee catches you with a weapon on the court? I think that’s a little more serious than a red card. You’d probably get arrested, and they might even suspend our entire team until they think they can trust us again. Then what?”

He said _our_ with perfect entitlement. Apparently all of Kevin’s bitching and Wymack’s rough form of welcome was enough to make their little runaway feel at home.

“I’d grieve forever,” Andrew told him.

“Why do you hate this game so much?” Neil asked, disapproval weighing down his words. Not for the knives themselves – just for what it might cost the Foxes. If he were attempting an imitation of Kevin, he couldn’t have been doing a better job.

Andrew sighed. “I don’t care enough about Exy to hate it. It’s just slightly less boring than living is, so I put up with it for now.”

“I don’t understand,” said the man who obviously cared enough about living to be afraid to die.

Andrew couldn’t relate. “That’s not my problem.”

“Isn’t it fun?”

And again with the imitation – ten points for effort. Too bad he wasn’t even trying. “Someone else asked me that same thing two years ago. Should I tell you what I told him? I said no. Something as pointless as this game is can never be fun.”

“Pointless,” Neil repeated, nonplussed. “But you have real talent.”

“Flattery is uninteresting and gets you nowhere.” Andrew had heard that one before.

“I’m just stating facts. You’re selling yourself short. You could be something if only you’d try.”

Andrew felt his face crack with a smile, barely enough to turn the corners of his mouth. “You be something. Kevin says you’ll be a champion. Four years and you’ll go pro. Five years and you’ll be Court. He promised Coach. He promised the school board. He argued until they signed off on you.”

He couldn’t have surprised Neil more if he’d levitated on the spot, by the looks.

“He – what?” Neil stuttered, blinking up at Andrew. And oh, apparently it was Kevin who was the surprising one.

“Then Kevin finally for the okay to sign you and you hit the ground running,” Andrew continued. “Curious that a man with so much potential, who has so much fun, who could ‘be something’ wouldn’t want any of it. Why is that?”

Andrew had written off the idea of it being poor self-esteem, for all Neil had claimed he wasn’t good enough. It went deeper than that – Andrew could see that playing across his face right now. Like he wanted desperately to believe Andrew, but couldn’t quite make himself. Like he wanted, desperately, but wasn’t sure he could have what was on offer.

Andrew cut that thought off at the quick.

“You’re lying,” Neil accused, as though he almost wanted Andrew to say _yes of course I am_. “Kevin hates me.”

“Or you hate him. I can’t decide. Your loose ends aren’t adding up.”

“I’m not a math problem.”

“But I’ll still solve you,” Andrew told him. That wasn’t a lie, either.

Neil turned away, but not before Andrew saw frustration flash over his face. Out on the court, Kevin was moving towards the door, finally done. Andrew stood and made his way down the stairs towards the inner court.

“You are a conundrum,” he told Neil. A runner who seemed to want to stay. A liar who thought he should be told the truth. A man who hadn’t denied Andrew’s assertion that he hated Kevin, and yet who looked at him with something indefinable written large across his face.

“Thank you,” Neil replied, without looking away from the court. Andrew slid past him, close but not close enough to touch.

“No, thank you,” he said. “I need a new toy to play with.”

“I’m not a toy.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

The court door banged open and then closed behind Kevin, who looked straight at Neil behind Andrew. His expression wasn’t as dismissive of their newest player as it was during the day – it was penetrating, instead. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to practice,” Neil replied.

“As if it’ll help you any,” Kevin said, which was more his usual. He passed his gloves and arm guards over to Andrew, who took them and collected the helmet he’d dropped onto the home bench. “Andrew?”

“Ready already,” Andrew told him, as though that wasn’t blatantly obvious. He heard enough dog comparisons in his life to make Kevin trying to call him to heel a minor irritation at worst and amusing at best. He was there because he had nowhere else to be, and because he’d made a deal, and he would leave without a moment’s notice if either of those things changed.

They left Neil behind, Kevin showering while Andrew perched on the bench in the locker room and bounced a ball off the floor and the far wall over and over. Kevin snatched it out of the air on his way past, back in the sweatpants and shirt he would wear when he collapsed into bed at Abby’s to sleep the sleep of the exhausted obsessives. He didn’t say a thing about Neil’s presence.

Instead, when he watched Andrew woozily try and put the key ignition, he said, “You could let me drive.” That just meant he was feeling more confident than usual.

“I would kill you and myself before I ever let that happen,” Andrew told him, letting the engine roar to life to drown out any reply he might have summoned up.

 

* * *

 

On June 9th, they moved into Fox Tower. It meant making two trips from Abby’s house to campus, one for Nicky’s belongings and one for the rest of them. Only Aaron went back with Nicky for the second trip, ostensibly so Andrew and Kevin could set the rest of the room up. In reality, it was because none of them could stand to be in a car with Andrew any longer than necessary.

Andrew perched on the edge of the desk where Nicky had thrown the window open, watching Kevin adjust things absently on his own desk. Both of them were ignoring the pile of disassembled shelving and furnishings inside the door.

Andrew slid the blade of a knife under the mesh screen covering the window and popped it free. The hot summer wind whipped at his hands, threatening to rip the screen out of his grip until he wrenched it inside – with a bit of bending of the aluminum frame – and dropped it between the desk and the wall. He sniffed dryly, feeling the breeze brush over his face inside the room, and then leant closer to light a cigarette.

“How likely do you think it is that Neil will leave his bag unattended today?” he asked Kevin on an exhale. He heard Kevin quit his fiddling behind him.

“His what?”

“His bag,” Andrew replied. “The one he keeps locked up when it isn’t on him. Haven’t you noticed?”

“I don’t know, Christ,” Kevin said. “Is he really that protective of his clothes?”

That could have been it, of course. Kevin had never been denied material possessions, but their ragtag rookie had eight or so separate outfits that Andrew had managed to memories over the past few weeks even mostly seeing Neil in gear. Andrew knew what protectiveness of the few things someone had looked like – _familiar_.

That could have been it. On the other hand, it could have been anything at all that Neil wanted to hide. Either way, Andrew wanted to find out.

Andrew grinned. “Maybe he’s really attached to jeans that don’t fit him.”

He couldn’t see Kevin’s face, but he knew he would be rolling his eyes. He said, “Don’t drag me into it.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little late to make that request?” Andrew asked. “You bought him here. Don’t complain about what that means.”

“I suppose that’s a ‘no’ then,” Kevin huffed, as though Andrew was ever even vaguely unclear when he said _no_. It was an unfortunate trait of Kevin’s that he insisted on either finding a way around it or step right over the top of it. Unfortunate, but not unfamiliar.

The door swung open then to admit Aaron and Nicky, and the room devolved into chaos as they sorted through things and set stuff up. Andrew didn’t move from his spot, staring absently out of the window and barely feeling the drum of his fingers at the desk.

Nicky came back from his last trip down to the parking lot and shoved a box onto the kitchenette benchtop, leaving the door open behind him. “Matt is going to pick up Dan and Renee now, apparently. God, I swear he’s gotten hotter over summer break.”

Aaron was in the bedroom, which was the only reason they didn’t hear a noise of disgust after that comment. Andrew asked, “And Neil?”

“Uh, Matt said he was going to the store but he’d drive him to the court later,” Nicky replied. “Wait, why?”

Andrew ignored the question. “Keep an eye out for him leaving.”

“What, no ‘please’?” Nicky said, like that was in any way surprising, but leaned against the front doorway anyway. By now, he’d gotten used to Andrew’s commands, and obeyed them with only mild complaining. He might have seen the efficiency in Andrew’s methods, but it was more likely that he was just too frightened to say no.

Whether it was fear of Andrew himself or what Andrew would do instead if Nicky didn’t follow through, Andrew wasn’t entirely sure. He figured it didn’t really matter – the results were the same either way. He slid off of the desk and went into the bedroom where he’d unpacked his clothes into a dresser, grabbing out the roll of cloth from the back where he kept his lockpicks. Aaron didn’t say a word between Andrew arriving and leaving again, though he did watch Andrew the entire time.

Out in the living area, Nicky was still hanging in the doorway, but he turned to Andrew when he came back. “He’s gone.”

“Bag or no bag?”

Nicky seemed to need a moment to think about that as he stepped back inside. “No bag? I think? Wait-”

Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off as Andrew slammed the door behind himself on the way out. Unsurprisingly, Neil had locked the door to their suite, but it was the work of a minute to crack the lock and let himself inside. Rich-boy Boyd had outfitted their suite well, as usual, but after a quick check of the desk drawers – empty – Andrew bypassed the living area and moved onto the bedroom.

It wasn’t much of an investigative feat to find the bag where Neil had hidden it, because there was nowhere to hide anything in the half-empty room. Andrew went straight for one of the two dressers that weren’t obviously Boyd’s, and found the right one first try. He carefully worked the duffel from where Neil had stuffed it into the drawer, working it so as not to damage anything inside of it. Then he dumped it onto the top of the dresser to examine it.

It was plain and well-used, stuffed full enough the seams were stretched. Despite that, it wasn’t impressive considering it was the entirety of Neil’s possessions. Andrew searched the pockets at each end, finding only a meager collection of bathroom products in a plastic bag in one of them. He replaced that quickly – Neil was sneaky, sure, but even he couldn’t hide much in a half-full bottle of cheap shampoo.

Then he unzipped the main compartment, revealing Neil’s bland collection of clothes. He sifted through, gently at first, noting the neat style of folding and that there was nothing sharp in there before pulling them free one by one and dumping them onto the floor.

None of that was interesting. It was only when he fingers met plastic at the bottom that Andrew’s focus heightened – he pulled a binder out from against the lining, flipping it open in his hands.

 The contents weren’t damning, not in the most basic sense of the word. What they were was vindication for Andrew’s suspicion, threefold over. What they were was ammunition.

Andrew had never seen so many photos of Kevin and Riko Moriyama in one place – articles, press shots, magazine spreads, everything. He’d thought of Neil as obsessive this entire time, but this was something else entirely. This was dangerous. This was what Andrew had made deals over. This was, at the very least, an unhealthy fascination with the Sons of Exy, and at worst the work of a stalker.

And then, when he hooked his fingers between sheets of paper, he found money. Lots of it. And oh, this was something worth hiding, worth the possessive curl of Neil's hands on the strap of his bag. Like everyone who'd been poor, Andrew had a startling awareness of how much a quarter of a million was worth.

Curious that their rabbit would have cash like this on him, even hidden. Perhaps he’d stolen it. Or perhaps someone had paid it to him.

Right in the back was a box of coloured contact lenses. That didn’t surprise Andrew – they’d been close enough that he’d already seen the thin ring around Neil’s irises that indicated he was wearing them. There’d been nothing in Neil’s file about corrective lenses, so it stood to reason that they were coloured.

Bland brown for a man trying very hard at appearing plain. Trying, and not succeeding.

Andrew closed the binder and slid it away, carefully replacing the clothes just as they’d been and zipping the bag closed again. Andrew’s paranoia recognized itself in others, and Neil no doubt would know how he’d left his things. Fortuitously, Andrew’s memory was excellent for unnoticed breaking and entering. He arranged the drawer as it had been and left, locking the door from the inside on his way.

Of course, it took no time at all for Neil to notice that someone had been into his things. The sound of him walking by alone out in the hall was just discernable over the sound of the video game Aaron and Nicky were playing. Andrew, who had returned to his spot by the window, looked up with the others when the door swung open to admit Neil not very long later. Apparently Andrew wasn’t the only one with the ability to finesse locks.

Andrew flicked away his cigarette, quietly delighted. Neil wasn’t as unbothered by Andrew as he tried to seem, and he’d come here for one reason. He knew who the danger was here, and that was satisfying. “Try again, Neil. You’re in the wrong room!”

 _Game, set, match_.

“We locked that,” Aaron said in German, looking at Nicky but edging the question at Andrew.

“Last I checked,” Nicky replied in the same language, before switching. “Hey, sounds like Matt’s back. You meet Dan and Renee yet?”

By the chill look he received for that, Neil didn’t appreciate Nicky’s attempt at pretending like nothing was happening. As well as he knew who was responsible, Neil knew what side the others fell on. Nicky played at being friendly, but he was a monster at the bones of him too.

Neil turned to Kevin instead of answer. What he said was indecipherable, but Andrew did recognize the language. He hadn’t realized their rookie was a polyglot as well as an actor and an athlete. Impressive, really.

“Wow, another one of Neil’s many talents. How many can one man have?” he asked.

Neil didn’t reply, his focus still on Kevin. His tone was unmistakably aggressive as he snapped something else at him.

Kevin replied in kind, and they went back and forth for a little while. It looked like threats. Andrew could recognize those in any language, or without words at all. Kevin seemed intent but unworried by the development – for a while, at least.

Then Neil’s mouth curved, and he said something that had Kevin turn white as a sheet. Kevin asked for something that sounded like a demand for clarification, and if Andrew hadn’t been able to pick Neil’s last comment as an insult, he certainly could the next.

Kevin moved. The chair he’d been sitting it crashed to the floor, and almost in time with it the door slammed behind Neil as he scarpered. Quick to open his mouth, quicker to run.

Neil was aggressive, but Kevin was more than six feet of trained and aggressive athlete who participated in a sport with almost-legal violence. He’d also grown up with Riko Moriyama, which was presumably where he’d learned how to grab Neil about the throat and pin him to a wall.

“What the fuck did you call me?” Kevin demanded, in English this time as Andrew followed them into the hall. Neil couldn’t answer, busy scrabbling at Kevin’s hands and trying to breathe. Andrew was almost amused by Kevin’s follow-through, though it figured his idea of an opponent was five-something of mouthy teenager with no ability to fight.

Then Boyd, who really had no idea when to mind his own business, got an arm around Kevin’s throat and dragged his head back. His hands, on Andrew’s things – dangerous combination.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down,” Nicky attempted, seeing that. “Come on, Matt.”

Andrew waited. Time slowed.

Kevin peeled one hand off of Neil and elbowed Boyd in the ribs. Boyd tightened his grip in response, pulling Kevin away from Neil until Kevin managed to worm free. His swing was pathetic – Boyd deflected it easily with trained grace that highlighted Kevin’s back alley brawling style, and then punched him hard enough to drop him.

His expression said he wanted to hit Kevin again: so protective, and over what? A freshman he’d just met? Andrew slipped between them, and watched Boyd pause. He was still, still inside and feeling the press of knives against every point of his skin, his smile as quiet as the grave. Boyd stepped back.

_Good choice._

Dan stepped in then, her face venomous as she looked from Andrew to Neil. “What do you think you’re doing? It’s our first day back. Why are we fighting already?”

 _We_ , it was always _we_ with her. Right up until it was _us_ and _them_ , anyway. Andrew was always one of _them_ when that happened.

“Technically we never left, and Neil’s been here a couple of weeks, so it’s your first day back, not ours,” Andrew pointed out, just to see Dan bite her lip on a vicious reply. He looked past her. “Hello, Renee. About time!”

“Explanation now, Andrew,” Dan cut Renee off at the pass.

“You’re looking at me like it’s my fault,” Andrew said, waggling a remonstrating finger. “Look again, why don’t you? Neil’s at our room, which meant he bought the fight to us. Dan, your bias is cruel and unprofessional.” Also, unsurprising and generally earned. It was satisfying to be right, though – Andrew took pleasure in truths that way.

Dan turned to Neil. “What’s the problem?”

“There isn’t one,” Neil replied, and there was the expression that made him a good liar. Looking at him, you could almost pretend he hadn’t just barged into their suite and had a verbal throw down with Kevin. He shrugged. “Just a difference in opinions. Nothing that matters.”

“We’re getting along splendidly,” Andrew told Dan. “Neil even agreed to ride to the stadium with us.”

“Oh did he?” Dan asked, disbelief bright in her voice.

“Yes,” Neil said, blinking slow and relaxed like he was side-stepping a pitfall and not throwing himself onto the spikes. “I figured Matt’s truck would be full, so I took them up on their offer.”

Dan couldn’t argue that, but she still glared at Andrew again. “I don’t know who started this, but the fighting stops now.”

He gave her his most innocent smile in response. “Always the optimist.”

Then he saluted Neil, fingers tapping against his temple. “See you soon. Don’t run off, okay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Neil lied through his teeth, meeting Andrew’s eyes as he did.


	5. mayday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last scene is Andrew's POV of a scene from the extra content.

True to his word, Neil showed up on Nicky’s heels, looking less afraid than he should have. Andrew’s casually-affected lean meant Neil had to stop in front of him, once he was done looking for a way out and finding that Andrew had already outmaneuvered him.

“You waited for us,” Andrew said. “A liar who practices occasional honesty. Clever. Keeps people guessing. Very effective. I would know. I do it myself, you see. Come on, then. After you.”

Andrew was technically an honest man who surprised people by lying to them, but that was beside the point. He’d known plenty of people like Neil, enough to be familiar with how they worked.

And this wasn’t honesty, anyway – it was stupidity.

Neil climbed into the backseat and Andrew followed him, slamming the door and letting himself be pushed back into the seat by Nicky’s brutal acceleration. The man truly could not drive – all risk, no calculation, only barely tolerable because of the adrenaline that came with a near-death experience. The speed threw Andrew against Neil’s side, and he felt Neil flinch from his weight.

“After everything we’re done for you, you have to start a fight with us. For shame, Neil,” Andrew said.

“You started this fight a month ago. If you want it to stop, leave me alone,” Neil replied, without looking away from the road in front of them. The attempt at emotional distance amused Andrew.

“I like fighting,” Andrew told him. “It’s just troublesome when Coach and Abby and the other busybodies start crying foul. Show some consideration.”

“You show some consideration and stay out of my things.”

So protective. Then again, Andrew would probably have been the same if had that amount of money squirreled away. “How do you know it was us, anyway? Maybe it was Matt. Innocent until proven guilty fails on an Exy court.”

“I haven’t heard you deny it yet.”

Well, Neil had said himself: omission was the easiest way to lie. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

“I don’t believe anything you say.”

“Believe this, Neil: you can’t put a leash on me. Don’t think you can, okay? And don’t be stupid enough to tell other people you will. It’s not safe. You’ll make me want to break you.”

A little lie. Andrew already wanted to break Neil, badly. He had since the moment he’d revealed that he had figured out the swap between Aaron and Andrew.

Neil flicked him a look, cool-eyed and unimpressed. “You? You can’t.”

“Ohhh, that sounds like a challenge.” Andrew’s smile stretched out, pulling at his cheeks. He wondered who had taught Neil that ferocity – someone he thought was worse than Andrew. “Mother may I?”

“Your mother’s dead. I don’t think she cares what you do.” A cheap shot, if it was aimed at someone who actually cared. Neil would have to try the other brother for that to work.

“I know for sure she never did. Well, she had to take offense to the dying part, but I thought that was rather fun.” Another small lie – Andrew had known it was necessary. He hadn’t thought much of it beyond that. He slapped a palm against his head, all mock-remembrance. “But you’re right. I do as I please. Consider this you official invite, you suicidal wretch. I’m bringing you to Columbia with us this Friday.”

He held up five fingers. “You have five days to meet the others. Five days of practices and all of Coach’s ridiculous bonding nonsense. Then it’s our turn on Friday. You can get to know us off the court.”

Five days likely wouldn’t be enough to the others to warn Neil, or wouldn’t be enough for him to believe the warnings. If he was suicidal enough to get into a car with them after his little scuffle with Kevin, he likely wouldn’t back down from an innocent night out.

“We’ll take you out to dinner,” Nicky cut in. “We used to live in Columbia, so we know all the best spots. Even better, we’ve got a free place to crash so we don’t have to worry about driving back drunk or exhausted. It’ll be a blast.”

“I don’t drink or dance,” Neil replied, surprising no one but likely disappointing Nicky.

“That’s alright. Kevin doesn’t dance anymore and I never do. You can drink soda and talk to us while the others make fools of themselves. We can’t get through this year with this little misunderstanding between us, so we’ll take a night off and fix it.”

Andrew would fix it. Permanently.

From Neil’s face, Andrew suspected he knew the kind of fixing Andrew meant, or could at least guess. But again there was that flicker of something in his expression, something Andrew couldn’t pin down – a flare of determination, perhaps. Well and truly misplaced.

“If I go, promise me you’ll never touch anything of mine ever again,” he said.

“So possessive.”

“Of course I am. Everything I own fits in one bag.”

Andrew tilted his head, considering. Then he grinned. “Okay. One night with us, and no more break-ins. Friday night will be fun.”

It would be an easy promise to keep, if Saturday dawned with their runner intent on running again.

Nicky’s driving had them at the stadium first. As the upperclassmen climbed out of Boyd’s truck, Andrew gestured at Neil. “Look, one piece.”

Boyd’s eyes flicked from him to Neil. “Are you bleeding anywhere?”

“Nowhere vital,” was the dry reply.

“Why don’t we wait inside for Seth and Allison? We’ve got a while and it’s a little warm out here,” Renee piped up, ever the peacekeeper.

“Maybe they’ll get in a crash and won’t make it,” Nicky muttered.

“Really, Nicky. That’s a little inappropriate, don’t you think?” Renee scolded him gently, making him fold into himself with guilt. Sweet voice, sharp knife – that was her down to the ground.

“Let’s go,” Dan said, leading them into the air-conditioned stadium. The brush of cool air prickled tight against Andrew’s skin beneath his clothes, aggravating and still welcome.

It was twenty minutes before the last two Foxes deigned to join them, mostly consumed with chit-chat between the upperclassmen and Andrew’s constant awareness of Kevin twitching at his side.

Andrew wasn’t so stupid that he hadn’t noticed a shift in Kevin’s behavior during the break. He was incurious about Kevin’s idiosyncrasies though, at least outside of things that were useful to him. Kevin’s anxieties weren’t useful, and so meant nothing besides him waking Andrew with nightmares more often than normal.

If someone had asked Andrew, he would have put it down to uncertainty about retaking the court come June 10th when the other Foxes returned. He spent enough time watching Kevin at night to know he wasn’t happy with his own progress – it would have made sense.

He was idly tuning out the others while he turned that idea over in his mind when the door banged open to admit a surly-faced Gordon, and Allison behind him. Fighting again, probably. She confirmed that when, after a considering look, she sidled up to Neil’s chair and slung herself all over him.

It was rather like watching two reptiles consider one another – Allison, all magazine-gloss beauty and more than her fair share of pride, smirked faintly as Neil stared back at her face like that was all there was to look at. It was either a clever ploy or genuine disinterest; Andrew couldn’t pick which for certain. He could tell what Allison thought it was though.

“I can move if you want to sit here,” Neil offered, while Gordon glared death at the both of them.

“No, this is fine,” Allison said back through her smile. She flicked the fingers on the hand that wasn’t curved around Neil’s shoulder to balance at Wymack. “This will be quick, won’t it? It was a long flight and I’m exhausted.”

Listening to Wymack’s blunt voice in comparison to her sugary, well-bred one was a study in contrasts. “You’re the one slowing this down.”

She looked unrepentant. Wymack pointed at Neil and continued, “First order of business: Neil Josten, our new striker sub. Got anything to say?” Neil shook his head. “You already met everyone else. Here’s the last of them: Seth Gordon, starting striker, and Allison Reynolds, our defensive dealer. Questions, comments, concerns? Anyone?”

Gordon pointed at Neil and snarled, “I’m fucking concerned-”

“All right, then. Moving on. Abby?” Wymack cut him off – Gordon was predictable in that he repeated himself, stubborn well past the point of stupidity in regard to everything. Abby stood and started handing out the usual forms while Coach continued with his usual spiel of things they all knew except for Neil. And apparently Andrew was due for his physical first, speaking of predictability.

Abby came to stand behind them – behind Kevin, in particular. Her presence was a needle in the base of his skull, for more than one reason. Andrew didn’t care about his physical, but he had no time or tolerance for Abby’s pathetic pity. He also didn’t want her at his back, or at Kevin’s.

Wymack hesistated, an action notable for its rarity. Then he reached for the last stack of papers at his side. “Last order of business from me today is our schedule.”

Kevin’s fidgeting stopped. He’d gone rigid instead.

“Already? It’s only June,” Boyd pointed out.

“We don’t have dates yet, but the ERC’s made some changes that will make this spring look like a cakewalk. They’re notifying the coaches in our district one by one to try and control the fallout. It has potential to get ugly.”

“How could it be worse than the shit we dealt with last year?” Gordon asked, like they didn’t have a Raven in their midst and a new striker who was apparently a secret from the wider world. Stupid _and_ unimaginative.

“The break-ins, threatening phone calls, rabid press, vandalism…” Boyd listed.

“Personal favourite was when someone told the police we were running a meth lab out of the dorm,” Dan said. “Police raids are awesome.”

Andrew had missed that one, which was lucky for all of them. He didn’t get on well with pigs.

“The death threats were creative, though. Maybe this time they’ll follow through and actually kill one of us. Let’s vote. I nominate Seth.” And people claimed that Nicky didn’t have a real mean streak. They were usual the ones who didn’t recognize when he was deadly serious, like right now.

“Fuck you, faggot.”

Stupid, unimaginative and bigoted as well. Andrew said, “I don’t like that word. Don’t use it.”

“I would say ‘fuck you, freak’, but then you wouldn’t know which one of you I was talking to,” Gordon replied, with all the moral superiority of someone who didn’t recognize that he belonged in the same classification as the rest of them.

“Don’t talk to us at all,” Aaron drawled from Kevin’s other side. “You never have anything useful to say.”

“Enough,” Coach cut in. “We don’t have time for petty bullshit this year. We’ve got a new school in our district.”

Kevin tensed more, drawing Andrew’s attention to his milk-pale face. And oh, this was what he was so upset over, wasn’t it?

“Edgar Allen’s come south,” Wymack continued. And just like that, Andrew felt the amusement slip away from him.

It took something serious to crack through him like that. Something like a trigger, something more than pain. Betrayal tended to do the job just fine.

His smiled crept back. “Hey, Kevin. Hear that? Someone really misses you.”

“The ERC shouldn’t have approved it,” Kevin murmured, as though that meant anything at all.

“You said he would come for you,” Andrew pointed out. Kevin had said that when they’d made their deal.

“I didn’t know it would be like this.”

“Liar.” The word tasted clean and cool as metal on Andrew’s tongue, and Kevin flinched at it. Andrew twisted to see him better, taking note of the lack of panic on his face.

“You did know about this,” he said, piecing it together. “How long? One day, two days, three four five?”

“Coach told me when it was approved in May.”

“May. May, Day. Mayday.” Ironic, really – they’d been through this once or twice already. “A little curious, Kevin Day. When were you going to tell me?”

“I told him not to,” Wymack said.

“You picked Coach over me? Ohhhh, my. Favouritism, deception, betrayal, how familiar. After all I’ve done for you.”

“Andrew, knock it off,” Abby attempted from behind them. She was wasting her breath – Andrew didn’t even bother looking away from Kevin.

“Help me,” Kevin murmured. His eyes were desperate, oh so desperate. Like it wasn’t already far too late for that.

“Help you? Help a man who lies to my face for a month? How?” They already had one sneaking dirty liar on the team – Andrew hadn’t figured Kevin for another. Or, at least, not when it came to his own skin.

“I want to stay.” That was the truth. “I’ll ask you again: don’t let him take me away.”

“You’re the one who would tell him yes,” Andrew pointed out. “Maybe you forgot.” That was all it would take: a Moriyama calling his dog to heel. Andrew doesn’t have anything to hold Kevin here. He only has tools to make his masters stay away from him.

“Please,” Kevin said on a breath.

Needles, needles. “You know how much I hate that word.”

Kevin broke his gaze, looking down to his scarred hand where he’d curved it into his lap. That was broken too, healed strange under the skin because Kevin was too frightened of the consequences of proper medical care and all that paperwork and all those questions. Nothing compared to the man himself, though.

Andrew huffed a sigh, holding his hand in the space between Kevin’s left hand and his face. “Look at me.”

He met Kevin’s deadened blank stare with a smile. “It’ll be fine. I promised, didn’t I? Don’t you believe me?”

Kevin was quiet for a long moment before he subtly relaxed from his attempt at feigning rigor mortis. Andrew was good for it – he wasn’t sure if Kevin recognized that, or if he was just reacting to whatever he imagined he saw in Andrew’s face.

Perhaps he just found the smile to be encouraging. He might just have been the first.

Wymack had been waiting for an explosion, and when it didn’t come he nodded. “The ERC will make their official announcement later this month. They agreed to wait until you were all here where it’s easier for us to protect you. That doesn’t mean you can be careless. Chuck – that’s our university president Charles Whittier, Neil – has reissued orders that reporters stay off our campus without a police escort this summer. You’ll see twice as many campus police around, and I need all of you to save their number to your phones just in case. Understand?”

Andrew said yes the same as everyone else, but the campus cops in their too-clean uniforms were more useless than real cops, and that was saying something. He’d exchange their number for his collection of knives any day.

“Anything else, Coach, or are we finished?” Neil piped up from the other side of the room, a jitter in him.

Interesting, interesting. The Ravens were coming for all of them, for Kevin in particular, and this man with his secret binder dedicated to the Sons of Exy had arrived just in time for that to happen.

Andrew didn’t believe in coincidences. He felt his tenuous, darting focus narrow, just a touch. Being high could only withstand so much, and he was due a dose sometime soon – concentration was just there out of reach, and he was reaching for it.

“This is a big deal,” Dan told Neil. “It changes everything. You don’t understand.”

Neil’s face was unreadable, and a lie. No one could be that emotionless over this kind of news. Even a normal rookie would have shown disappointment over news that their season was done before it had even begun with Edgar Allen in their territory.

“Neil found out when Kevin did. I already had the talk with him, so he understands just fine,” Wymack explained. And how had that come to be, exactly? Neil and Kevin were never alone together, as far as Andrew knew. Then again, Kevin had already been keeping one secret from Andrew. “And no, there’s nothing else. Abby, they’re all yours. Do with them what you will.”

Neil bolted without looking back, at a pace just slow enough to almost look casual. Every pair of eyes in the room watched him go.

“How’s he going to get back to the Tower?” Boyd asked no one in particular, a frown stretching over his face.

“Oh, he’ll run,” Andrew supplied around his smile.

Renee stood, patting Dan on the shoulder as she went, and followed Neil.

Dan watched her go, and then glanced towards Kevin. “What do you think of the rookie?”

It became very clear after a moment that she would get no answer from Kevin – he was still halfway frozen, his attention miles from here. Before she could demand one, Nicky chimed in with, “He’s good. He just needs more time with the whole team to really get in the swing of things.”

“Needs more aggression,” Aaron chimed in, bored and barely bothering to glance up from his phone. “Too much time running, too little time training contact. Typical high schooler.”

“Running, though,” Andrew said. “There, I’m willing to bet he could beat all of you.”

“He’s fast?” Dan perked up.

“Ran a four-minute mile back in his hometown,” Wymack volunteered. His pose said ‘disinterested’ but his sharp gaze made that into a lie. “He has potential.”

Dan tilted her head at that, considering. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Wymack’s return gaze said _find out for yourself._ It wasn’t a tactic that would ever work on Andrew, but Dan’s mouth quirked with a smile.

“Enough gossiping,” Abby broke in, clapping her hands to get them moving. “Andrew, you’re up. Come with me.”

 

* * *

 

Since that very first break in, when Andrew had brought signed contracts with him and left with a whole bottle of Chavas – if you included the part he’d already drunk – Wymack had never changed his lock. It was boring, because anything that took Andrew so little effort was boring. It was also predictable, because Wymack was as good at keeping Foxes out of his apartment as he was at keeping track of potential threats on his team.

He cared about them. It wasn’t very smart of him.

The lock on the drinks cabinet was just as easy to finesse. Andrew claimed a full bottle of whiskey and folded himself onto the couch before cracking it open. He used the deep burn of it to wash away the salt-sweet-electric burst of cracker dust from his tongue.

While he was high, Andrew’s patience was shot and he would have spent the half-hour it took for Wymack to get home bouncing off the walls. As it was, he stayed very still and kept drinking, feeling his stomach churn with wave after cramping wave of withdrawal that even the alcohol couldn’t weather entirely.

What it mostly gave him was time to consider. Dangerous, dangerous. All the plans he’d started making for Neil on the way to the stadium now looked less like fun and more like life-or-death. Andrew just couldn’t decide whether the life or death in question was Neil’s, or Kevin’s.

The front door cracked open and Wymack paused in the doorway for a moment before coming down the hall. When he appeared in the living room door, he took in Andrew’s tight posture on his couch, the whiskey bottle and discarded cracker packets, and lastly Andrew’s expression. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like a smile – it felt like a death glare. Andrew was just about sober enough to make that distinction.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Wymack said. He didn’t sound particularly irritated, or surprised for that matter. ‘Resigned’ was perhaps the best word for it.

“Shut the fuck up,” Andrew ground out through his gritted jaw.

That earned him a shake of the head before Wymack withdrew. Andrew listened as the mail thumped down on the kitchen table before there was a series of rattles and clatters. When he reemerged, he was carrying two plates, one of which he put down beside Andrew. Then he took his own plate and sat on the coffee table in front of Andrew, putting them nearly eye-to-eye.

“You’re cleaning this place before you leave,” he said. “You leave even a speck of that dust behind in my apartment and we’re going to have a serious problem.”

“We already have a serious problem,” Andrew replied.

“Eat first, bitch at me later,” Wymack said, taking a bite of his own sandwich like it was challenge. Andrew accepted that only because Wymack would be the one taking the brunt of it if Andrew vomited, though it took him a long moment to coax his hands from where they’d frozen about his ankles. He shredded the food into pieces small enough to swallow and skipped the part where he would need to actually taste it. Even then, his mouth flooded with too much saliva.

He barely made it through half before he put the plate aside and turned back to the whiskey. The glass of the mouth was bright-cold against his lower lip, but warmed quickly when he let it rest there until he’d drunk enough to keep everything down again.

When he pulled it away, he brushed a thumb over said lower lip and marveled at the difference in the shape of it when he wasn’t smiling. He asked Wymack, “What colour are his eyes?”

“Green.”

If Andrew had noticed the contacts, he knew that Wymack would have. “I’m not talking about Kevin.”

“For once,” Wymack agreed, putting his plate down beside him.

“Who have you let on my team?”

He saw the shift in Wymack’s expression that meant Andrew had surprised him. Generally, there was a small thrill in doing that with a man who seemed to see straight through people to their cores, but it was less so when the subject of Andrew’s thoughts was so opaque. If there was one man that Wymack needed to look closer at, it was Neil Josten.

“Kevin picked him,” Wymack replied, with a tiny there-and-gone furrow in his forehead. “I just signed off on him.”

“Mistake. He can’t stay,” Andrew said. “If you don’t chase him off I will.”

“Leave him alone.” When Andrew reached for the bottle again, Wymack’s hand slammed over the top of it and shunted it back down hard enough they both felt the force of it. More fool him if it had broken – he’d be without a goalkeeper for the time it took to heal lacerations, and without a hand to jerk off with. “Andrew. _Leave him alone_. He’s got just as much right to be here as any of you do.”

“He is losing that right at an alarming rate. I’m sick of his lies.”

“I’m sure he’s sick of your sunshine attitude, too.”

“We missed something,” Andrew said, ignoring that last. “I don’t know how. I don’t know where. It doesn’t add up. Did you know? The only truth he tells is Exy. That isn’t enough, and it isn’t going to last. He can’t spend every second of every day with us without unraveling at the seams. The cracks are starting to show. Do you know what he’s hiding?”

“It’s not my business unless he makes it mine,” Wymack replied, because he was a goddamn idealist when it came right down to it. It was Andrew’s least favourite trait of his.

“You saw the way he looked at Kevin.”

“You used to hate Kevin too. He’s not exactly a people person.”

Missing the point. Neil didn’t look at Kevin like he hated him. He looked at him like he recognized him, and there was something deeper than that, too. Longing, or something like it. Andrew, who had no idea what that felt like, wouldn’t have trusted it from anyone, never mind someone whose façade was already falling apart.

“I won’t tolerate loose ends,” Andrew said. “Not this year, not with Riko in our district. He isn’t safe.”

“Have you even tried talking to him?”

Oh, Andrew had tried talking, for all the good it had done him. He remembered very clearly Neil’s imitation of Andrew’s own salute, and the words _better luck next time_ said from a flat-line mouth. “Like talking to a politician. Fake smiles and bullshit. Complete waste of time. No. He had his chance to come clean and he ignored it. I’m taking him to Columbia this Friday.”

Wymack’s brow pulled down. “Don’t you dare.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“But I can end you. _All_ of you. If you do to him what you did to Matt, I will cut every last one of you from my roster.”

Neil wasn’t a junkie anyway, and Wymack knew that as well as he knew why Andrew had done it. He might not have _liked_ it, but he _understood_ it.

He didn’t understand this.

“You don’t even know who you’re protecting,” Andrew said.

“A Fox, same as any of you.” And that was the problem. Andrew had priorities. Wymack didn’t amongst his team, or at least did a good job of pretending he didn’t. He would cut Andrew in a heartbeat, Aaron and Nicky too, if they played this game all the way through. Kevin, though…

Andrew took the bottle again, letting it soothe the vague irritation that pricked at the back of his tongue. He couldn’t believe that Wymack would cut Kevin. Then again, he also couldn’t quite convince himself that Wymack wouldn’t to prove his point once and for all. Wymack could see that – after a few more minutes of trying to probe Andrew’s thoughts with his eyes, he stood and took their plates away, making his own retreat.

Andrew drowned himself in whiskey and debated – _worth it, not worth it_. The thing about Coach was that he was less predictable than the others, even in the midst of being predictably good. Maybe it was just that the two of them weren’t made quite the same way.

Whatever it was, Andrew hated it. He curled his hands back around his ankles again, firm verging on hard, and let his thoughts slosh back and forth like the restless tide in his belly and the itch in his palms.

His phone went off a few times, Nicky’s name flashing on the screen. Andrew ignored them each time, muffling the bright sound of it in the couch under his thigh.

The last time, it was Renee instead. Smart. Nicky often did wise up eventually. Andrew answered it after a few rings, pressing it to his ear.

“Did I wake you?” Renee asked from the other end, her voice low and sweet like usual.

“No.”

She took that in stride. “I was hoping to talk to you tonight, but Nicky says you’ve wandered off.” Coming from enough of an angle to avoid being a demand for information that Andrew wouldn’t answer, but straight enough not to irritate him. It was a very Renee kind of tactic; at least when it came to words.

“I’m with Coach, and uninterested in talking right now,” Andrew replied, scraping the nails of his free hand over the couch cushion.

“Oh? All right, then,” Renee said, easy as breathing. “I’ll try again tomorrow. Lunch, perhaps?”

“No.” To lunch, not to speaking, but Renee would know that too.

“Okay. Good night.” She didn’t wait for him to reply in kind before hanging up. Andrew had barely shut his phone when Wymack reappeared in the doorway and threw a blanket at him. Either his aim was off or he wasn’t aiming to hit Andrew, and it flopped down on the floor where Andrew toed it aimlessly for a long moment before dragging it up and over himself.

Kevin would be fine for the night, not least because he wouldn’t move from his bed. If Andrew tried to walk back to the Tower like this, he wouldn’t make it. Leaving wasn’t an option for either of them. The irony of Neil being the last one to sleep on this couch did not escape him though.

“You wouldn’t really cut Kevin.” It wasn’t a question. Wymack knew that, because he didn’t answer, turning away without a word instead.

Andrew lay back, pulling the blanket with him. His head swam with the motion but still when he closed his eyes. It was familiar. Less so was the subtle bite of victory, rising earlier than it really deserved.

Friday, he’d get his game and get his answers at last, and Kevin wouldn’t be the price he would have to pay for it.


	6. sharks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for all the things that happen in Neil's first trip to Columbia. 
> 
> Sorry if there's mistakes, I would rather die than edit lmao.

The first week of summer practice last year had been Andrew and his against the rest of the Foxes. This year it was all in-fighting across the board, and it was not improved by Kevin’s return to the court as a player rather than their no-holds-barred assistant coach.

Kevin as a coach had never held back, but he wasn’t improved by proximity – he’d been easier to bear with a layer of plexiglass between him and the rest of them. Neil was probably grateful for the reprieve that Kevin and Gordon’s hatred of each other earned him, because it meant that Kevin wasn’t constantly riding his ass any more.

Andrew knew that his absence on Wednesday afternoon would bring it all to a head, but that didn’t stop him from leaving as usual. Gordon had no killer instinct, and he was more afraid of Andrew than he let on. He knew that he’d suffer for it later if he did more than push Kevin around, and, as pathetic as he might sometimes be, Kevin was more than capable of standing his ground in an on-court brawl.

Andrew’s sessions with Betsy had continued through summer, so it wasn’t anything new to go to Reddin. Nicky chattered blithely about Friday night and taking Neil along with them like it would be a normal night at the club, pausing only briefly when Andrew mentioned Neil’s lack of anything vaguely appropriate to wear.

Ragged jeans might get Neil through the front door, as long as he was with them, but it would get him branded _fresh meat_ to anyone with half a brain at Eden’s Twilight. Andrew didn’t have time for that as well – he told Nicky the sizes burned into his brain after going through Neil’s bag and turned the problem over to him.

“It’s creepy that you know that,” Nicky informed him. “Gay? Creepy? I’m not sure. Anyway, whatever, I’ll find him something. Maybe something a size smaller – it might actually fit him.”

He looked delighted by the idea. Andrew had always liked a quick and easy solution. Nicky pulled in to the Reddin lot, called a goodbye to Andrew that he probably should have given up on by now, considering the frequency with which Andrew ever returned the favour, and drove off.

Andrew took the stairs up. During the day he always had energy to burn, building and building under his skin, and it took more than practices to get rid of it.

Betsy had left her office door open for him, like she always did now. Andrew paused at the doorway and waited for her to look up at him.

She smiled at the sight of him, like she had every single day of their acquaintance so far. “Hello, Andrew. Come in, have a seat. Do you want something to drink?”

Andrew took his usual seat, closer to the window. “It’s too hot for it.”

“I do have other things beside hot chocolate,” Betsy replied. “Water, perhaps?”

Andrew shook his head, and watched as Betsy pulled the pristine notepad from the side of her desk where she always kept it lined up in the corner. She took a pen from the cup, and then laid down her little tape recorder between them, again in line with the edge of the desk. It had taken Andrew five minutes in their first session for him to notice her quirk for organization, another few to recognize it for what it really was, and a few sessions to try and exploit it.

It had backfired. At the time he’d been almost disappointed, but these days he wasn’t that anymore.

“Tell me about your week,” Betsy said, leaning her chin against her palm.

“Well!” Andrew said. “Our team is back together, with all that entails.”

“Don’t forget, I’m hardly an expert on Exy. What does it entail, exactly?”

“Fighting,” Andrew replied. “Coach likes us to burn off the aggression with each other before he tries to make us play anyone else. Hard to play another team if you’re too busy trying to take your teammates out.”

“Does it bother you? The fighting, that is.”

Andrew looked at her. “I don’t take part, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“We’ve talked before about you assuming what I mean when I ask questions,” Betsy replied, a gentle rebuke. She didn’t like Andrew trying to extrapolate the purpose behind her questions instead of just answering them, apparently. It hadn’t stopped Andrew yet.

“No, it doesn’t bother me. It makes things interesting,” Andrew said.

“Because Exy is boring,” Betsy said. There was no trace of question in her tone – it was something Andrew often said, something she’d challenged him over until she realized she wasn’t going to get the answer she wanted out of him this lifetime, so now she seemed to just repeat it as rote. It always sounded like a reminder, though he wasn’t sure who it was meant for.

“And what do you make of your new competitors?” Betsy asked. She was always unmoved, unbothered by the truth even when it was as harsh and implacable as Andrew’s, but her eye contact was too steady when she asked. It meant that someone – Coach, perhaps Abby – had told her about Edgar Allen’s move, and likely specifically because of him. “Surely they’ll add an element of interest to your season?”

“You’re asking the wrong person about that. You want Kevin,” Andrew replied.

Betsy accepted that easily. “And how are things with Kevin?”

“Even if he survives being on the court with the Foxes, I doubt he’ll survive playing against the Ravens,” Andrew said truthfully.

Kevin took strength from Andrew, but from his sleepless nights and the new fervor with which he threw himself into every single practice, Andrew knew it probably wouldn’t be enough. Kevin would take one look at his old teammates and crumble irreparably.

Betsy hummed. “And how does that make you feel? I know you and Kevin are close.”

Andrew shrugged. “I can’t grow a spine for him.”

Whatever it was that Kevin needed, Andrew didn’t have it. He wasn’t even entirely sure what it was. He’d offered Kevin everything he had, in a sense, and in some ways it would be a relief to know for sure. Andrew had been waiting for months for Kevin to break their deal. He’d prefer it happened sooner than later.

Betsy nodded again. “And what do you make of your new teammate, now that the team is back together? Is he fitting in well?”

Andrew laughed. “Like an sheep amongst wolves.”

Betsy had asked him regularly about Neil Josten before, since his arrival. Perhaps her experience with Boyd had taught her to be wary about Andrew meeting strangers, but mostly Andrew suspected she thought she could learn something new about Andrew himself when she asked him about new people.

“What do you mean?” Betsy asked.

“I didn’t think that was unclear,” Andrew replied, raising an eyebrow over his smile. “I know you like me to tell the truth, but I didn’t think a metaphor counted as lying.”

“Evasion,” Betsy pointed out. She’d gotten into the habit of pointing out patterns in his speech to catch him out, giving up on expounding on them. It wasn’t as though Andrew didn’t know what he was doing, at this point. It was a novelty to get called out over it, though. She continued, “And you always tell the truth. Now, what do you mean?”

“I mean he doesn’t fit in with the rest of us. With the Foxes, what you see is what you get. He’s either frightened or he’s lying,” Andrew said. “I think he’s lying. But you already know that.”

“I do,” Betsy agreed. “Is that what makes him a sheep?”

“No,” Andrew said, tilting his head. “That's what makes him a swimmer in the ocean, bleeding out. Sooner or later, a shark is going to come along and pull him apart. And on our court he’s swimming in a pool teeming with them.”

“I imagine you include yourself amongst the sharks,” Betsy mused, tapping her pen three times on her pad.

Andrew smiled, all teeth, all predator. “Oh, Bee. I can already smell the blood in the water.”

 

* * *

 

“Fuck off Kevin!” Nicky yelped from the bathroom when Kevin bounced a ball down the hall and off of the door for the tenth time.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Kevin called back, catching the ball on the rebound in one hand from his desk chair.

“They aren’t going to run out of booze before we get there!”

“Shut the fuck up, both of you,” Aaron snarled from the bedroom. Though Andrew would never say as much, for once he agreed with him. He’d skipped his last dose, and there was already a press at the back of his neck like his spine was shrinking down.

The bathroom door swung open just as Kevin threw again. Nicky caught the ball, though not without yelling, and hurled it back at Kevin’s face. The bedroom door smashed open and Aaron stomped down the hall, daring Kevin to throw again with him right there. They, at least, were ready. Andrew had been for a half hour. Nicky ducked into the bedroom and finally came out into the lounge to join the rest of them, though not without a foul look at Kevin.

“So now we’re just waiting on Neil,” he chirped, shoving his wallet in his pocket.

“Think we’ll have to go get him?” Andrew asked, his voice lazily intent.

“I said we’d pick him up. May as well go over,” Nicky said. Two minutes later he was saying, “That wasn’t quite what I meant,” as Andrew picked the lock to Neil’s suite and let them in.

“I’m not standing around in the hall,” Kevin growled, pushing past him to go inside. He threw himself on Boyd’s couch, and Aaron sat beside him.

“I’m just saying, it’s not really polite! Or law-abiding, for that matter,” Nicky continued, as though this would be the least rude or illegal thing they did this evening. He came in anyway, taking the third cushion on the couch. Andrew stood in the open space between it and the television, flicking a glance down the hall. The bathroom door was closed – Neil was either in there somewhere, or he’d come to his senses and bolted already.

“You know, we should really get something like this,” Nicky mused, patting the arm of the couch.

“With what, exactly?” Aaron asked, though he looked more relaxed now with the promise of dust in his immediate future. He was as sober as their sort ever got, these days, but Tilda had taught him the habits of a lifetime of using, and Andrew doubted that Aaron would ever forget the lessons.

Nicky shrugged. “I could come up with something, if everyone is interested-”

Andrew saw a flash of movement down the hall and followed it. Neil was shoving a bundle of clothes into his dresser drawer in the bedroom, and he paused when he turned and found Andrew leaning in the doorway.

He looked different in clothes that actually fit him, and he seemed to know it. All the lean confidence he seemed to forget about when he wore an oversized t-shirt or his court gear had been replaced by stillness, but the shape of him was entirely exposed to anyone who cared to look. There was an awkward tilt to his shoulders as he tried to hide, but it made no difference.

At the same time, Neil was studying him back. Andrew knew what he was seeing, first and foremost: the lack of a smile curving Andrew’s mouth.

He must have known that he couldn’t get past Andrew without a backliner’s tricks, so it was brave of him to step close. It put him within arm’s reach, and Andrew grabbed the back of his neck to pulled him closer. He felt Neil stiffen, but he made no protest as he stared straight at Andrew’s cheek.

Without the contacts, his eyes were a very clear fine blue, stark against his hair. Andrew was willing to bet that was fake, too, but this one truth was interesting enough against Neil’s entire self. The contacts made more sense, seeing the true colour underneath them – Neil was a runner, and eyes like that were far more distinctive than the plain brown he wore.

“Another bit of unexpected honesty,” Andrew said. “Any particular reason?”

Neil adjusted an inch so their eyes met straight on. “Nicky asked nicely. You might try it sometime.”

“We already talked about this. I don’t ask.” Andrew looked him over again, and then stopped, releasing Neil. “We’re going.”

He turned and led Neil out, greeted by Nicky’s enthusiastic smile. It faltered when he caught sight of Neil properly.

“Oh, man,” he said. “Neil, you clean up good. Can I say that, or is that against the rules? Just – damn. Aaron, don’t let me get too drunk tonight.”

Andrew didn’t believe in rules. Promises made a much more reliable currency. That was what he was making when he flicked his lighter in Nicky’s face and said, “Don’t make me kill you,” around a mouthful of cigarette smoke.

Nicky raised his hands, wary. “I know.”

“Do you?” Andrew doubted it. Expecting the worst was a habit of a lifetime, but he was very seldom proved wrong.

“Promise.” Nicky’s voice came out weak. He might remember himself for an entire night this time.

Andrew dropped the lighter back into his pocket and left the room with Kevin at his back, Aaron behind them. Neil ended up between him and Aaron again, stiff-spined like he was waiting for them to start in on him already. Fortunately for him, Andrew was well inside the crash-zone, and fell asleep within minutes to the smooth lullaby of the GS’s engine and the road beneath the wheels.

A hand on his shoulder woke him. It was a push rather than a grab, but by the time he made that distinction he’d already struck out and met flesh, elbow driving out someone’s breath.

Someone snapped their fingers in his ear, and his brother’s plain voice said, “Exit.”

Neil was conveniently bent double over his belly, so Andrew used him as a brace to look out the front. His vision was razor-sharp with adrenaline, but it still took him a moment to recognize where they actually were. “Not yet. It’s the exit that has Waffle House.”

“This is South Carolina. Every exit leads to Waffle House,” Nicky said, though cheerfully. “Still breathing, Neil?”

From under Andrew’s weight, Neil gasped, “Yes. I think.”

Andrew slid back into his seat. When Neil pressed himself upright, he touched a hand to his side like he thought he might be bleeding. Andrew ignored that in favour of holding his hands up to his face. Under the adrenaline of being startled awake and the taste of fear, there was another much more familiar taste on his tongue – bile.

His hands were shaking. He said, “Nicky.”

Nicky glanced back at him in the rearview, pulling across to their exit. “We’re almost there.”

“Pull over.”

“We’re on an exit ramp.”

Andrew would smash out the fucking window if he had to. “Now.”

That must have shown in his voice, or maybe Nicky just knew him, because he didn’t say anything else, just half-spun the car off the road in the shred of the shoulder amid blaring horns that set Andrew’s vision black and white.

He shoved his door open almost before they’d rocked to a stop, using his seatbelt as an anchor against his chest as he retched. The reaction was always violent, his body shaking apart from the inside out.

“Where are your crackers?” Nicky demanded. Andrew barely heard him.

“He took them earlier.” That was Kevin, predictably judgmental.

“All of them? Jesus, Andrew.”

“Shut up,” Andrew said around the taste of pure stomach acid. He spat, then fumbled back inside the car for the headrest. Once he’d found it, he levered himself back into his seat. “Just get us there.”

He lost most of the rest of the drive to fatigue, shaking and feeling the prick of cold sweat all down his spine. It had been a while since he’d been this far gone – picking up Neil had really only been a taster, and he’d softened that better than this. The fact of the bottle of his drugs sitting in Kevin’s pocket just in front of him was a stone on his chest, a sick drag that he could only fight so far.

Nicky threw them out on the doorstep of Sweetie’s, and Andrew went straight to the salad bar to collect crackers from the salad bar. He swallowed them down like concrete dust, Kevin watching on with his fingers hooked into his pocket like a dare Andrew desperately did and did not want to take, and restrained himself to a glare rather than breaking the other man’s face.

There was a way of doing things here, but Andrew didn’t care. He shoved the empty packets into the host’s apron before the man could leave after seating them.

His world was very narrow like this. He could just about make out the attention of the others, Kevin’s mock-chill focus, and the press of the table under his palm where he had it flat. Without that and without the press of his other hand to his face, he felt like he might either lose it entirely, or slide entirely off of the face of the earth.

That was the worst thing, of course. He _felt_.

There was a familiar rattle and click in front of him, and Andrew’s vision widened to take in Kevin and the pill bottle between them on the table. He said, “Just take it.”

On anyone else, it would have been out of genuine concern for his wellbeing. On Kevin, it was concern for Andrew losing it and ending their season before it even started. That narrow-minded focus drove Andrew to perfect stillness, making the temptation void.

“Fuck you.” He liked a fight. Fighting Kevin was preferable to fighting himself, at least for a moment. “Put that away before I shove it down your throat.”

Kevin frowned at him like he was a misbehaving child, but the bottle went back into his pocket.

Their ice cream arrived not long after that, but Andrew’s focus was on the pile of napkins the waitress left.

“We’re in public,” Aaron pointed out, but did nothing else to stop Andrew from swallowing two of the packets straight up. The burst of salt-sweet on his tongue made his nose burn and threaten to run instantly. He collected the rest of the packets and stashed them, and then had to pause and swallow when the crackers threatened to make an immediate reappearance when he moved. The click of his throat was a gunshot.

Crackers worked fast, though. He dropped his hand from where he’d pressed it to his mouth and his muscles were already easing, losing the shock-rigid tremors of withdrawal. His stomach, the rebellion done, made no further complaints as he started to eat the ice cream that was in front of him. It didn’t taste like anything but dust until he was halfway through, but that didn’t matter.

Eden’s was as busy as ever, the line winding out the door. Lance and Tommy were on the door, and they both straightened at the sight of the car. They weren’t the only ones to look, either – Kevin drew looks wherever he went, even amongst crowds who knew nothing about Exy, and Andrew was distinctive. Andrew was also ignoring them, sweeping past with a salute to the boys on the door and inside.

It was early for a club, but Eden’s was always wild on a Friday night. It took a bit of searching to find a table amongst the crush on the lower floor. Andrew cleared the collection of glasses off of it while Aaron found extra chairs for them. Then Andrew curled his hand around Neil’s collar and pulled him to the bar.

It was interesting that Neil had no complaints about being manhandled. Andrew didn’t think it was pliancy, necessarily, and nor was Neil a man accustomed to touch. Maybe – maybe Andrew was wrong on that. Either way, Neil seemed unbothered by Andrew moving him.

Roland was serving a group of drunken girls in dresses in shades of leather, but he tilted his chin to Andrew at a distance as soon as Andrew’s elbow landed in a gap on the bar. There wasn’t much standing room in the crowd, which left Neil brushing against Andrew’s back with the flow of people around them. Andrew gritted his teeth – it was an irritation, but bearable.

When he made it to them, Roland smiled. “Back so soon, Andrew? Who’s your newest victim?”

“A nobody,” Andrew replied. “It’s the usual for us.”

Roland nodded, and then asked Neil, “And for you?”

“I don’t drink,” Neil said, predictably.

“Soda, then,” Roland nodded, pushing back off the bar with both hands to start mixing. It stretched out his spine in a way Andrew liked to watch, alongside the clever twists and tricks he used to show off when he put drinks together. He’d made a joke about showing Andrew how once, but Andrew preferred the other kind of lessons Roland had for him.

Neil got his soda last, cradling it to himself while Andrew and the tray led the way through the crowd. The trick of balancing a tray was something Nicky had taught him, though not intentionally – using his hand to shove people out of the way was Andrew’s variation, and one that had made him more popular in Eden’s than it would have in another club where less people wore bondage gear.

Back at the table, they started drinking at their usual rate, Nicky cheerfully prodding Neil along with them. Their addition watched and didn’t speak unless he was questioned directly, and Nicky was the only one who bothered – Aaron was in a good mood, which meant he wasn’t silent, but he only spoke to Kevin and Nicky, and Kevin was too busy working on destroying his liver to talk to any of them.

Neil came with him without prompting to get their second round, taking his soda all over again. Once they returned to the table, Andrew dumped the cracker dust packets out of his pocket onto it between the glasses. He waved one at Neil and got a dead flat look in response.

“Cracker dust,” Nicky explained, taking a packet and tearing it open. “Heard of it? Tastes like sugar and salt and gives you a small rush. Sure you don’t want in?”

“Drugs are stupid,” Neil replied.

“Ouch.” Andrew’s mouth turned upwards, chill. “That’s judgemental.”

“I’m not going to apologise for thinking you’re being idiotic,” he said, which was interesting – he had stronger feelings over crackers than he did over Andrew sober, apparently. As only one of those things were purported to be dangerous, Andrew had to wonder about Neil’s priorities.

“Is your spine the spine of the righteous?” Andrew asked him. “Are you trying your best to step on my toes because you’re feeling the tragic weight of the holier than thou?”

That would have been a quick answer. Neil’s pale eyes were dark as he replied, “Righteousness is for people who don’t know any better.”

“Easy, easy,” Nicky intervened, passing shots around the table. He dropped the laced soda shot in front of Neil. “Dust isn’t bad. It just makes the night more interesting. You think Kevin would risk his future over a night out at the club?”

“What future?” Neil asked darkly. The look that earned him from Kevin was murderous.

“Drink with us if you won’t dust with us,” Nicky cut him off, shot in one hand and dust in the other. “Down the hatch on three.”

Andrew didn’t pause from taking his own shot to watch Neil take his, but he saw the aftereffects – the whip-quick realization on Neil’s face turning panic, and him moving to get to his feet.

He’d barely lifted his ass off of the chair when Andrew grabbed a handful of his hair and dragged him back into it. Another pull put his neck at a harsh angle, and Andrew slammed Neil’s right arm into the tabletop. When Neil’s over hand moved to try and pry himself free, Nicky caught it.

Once a monster, always a monster. Nicky could be irritating, but he was impossibly useful when it came to this kind of trick.

“Just noticed, did you?” Andrew asked Neil. “You’re an idiot.”

“Y-you,” Neil choked out.

“Did you think you were safe because you were up there ordering your own drinks? Roland knows what it means when I bring outsiders here.” Andrew half expected that Neil hadn’t even considered that kind of betrayal. Boys who looked so blindsided by the inside of a club usually didn’t have any experience with spiked drinks.

Neil ripped his hand free, but he stopped moving when Andrew pulled at his hair hard enough to jar his spine, by the pained hiss of exhalation that forced itself out of Neil’s lips. Andrew slid out of his seat and leaned close enough to see Neil’s eyes, noting the expansion of his pupils.

“Almost there,” he told Neil, voice low. “Give it a minute and then it’ll really hit. Until then, why don’t you go have a little fun? The night is still young.”

Aaron was waiting behind Neil, foot hooked through the bars of Neil’s stool. When Andrew released him, Neil surged forwards with a promise of death in his eyes, but Aaron dragging him backwards stopped him cold. Andrew watched Aaron and Nicky manhandle him upright, Aaron not hesitating in shaking him to deter him from hitting either of them. They dragged him, stumbling, in the direction of the dance floor.

Kevin had watched the entire show without moving, his jaw cradled in one hand as he examined the table. The look he shot Andrew after Neil disappeared was blank and drunk and a little bit accusing. Apparently he was a touch attached.

All the more reason to do this, then. Aaron reappeared then, reaching for another drink, and Andrew told them both, “Don’t move.”

It wasn’t hard to pick Neil out of the crowd, height aside – plenty of the dancers were drunk, but it was too early for anyone else to be staggering. Nicky had abandoned him in the centre of the crowd, but Neil was looking for a way out.

Andrew set his hand against his lower back and pushed, popping him out of the crush like a cork. He bounced off of the wall, arms out to hang on and steady himself. Andrew leaned against it just out of his reach, watching him scrabble at the paint like the floor was tilting. When Neil turned his face to him, his gaze was fierce and completely blown and not quite focused on Andrew.

“Such ingratitude,” Andrew said. “Those drinks were expensive.”

The drugs, not the soda, anyway. Neil snarled through his teeth with a slur, “I hate you.”

Andrew could have laughed. “Take a number and get in line with the rest of this team. I won’t lose any sleep over it.”

“Don’t sleep. I’ll kill you.”

He was ambitious, Andrew would give him that much. “Will you? Will you do it yourself, or will you pay someone else to handle the mess? You certainly have enough money to outsource it to a proper hit man. One wonders what a no-one like you is doing with such a fortune.”

“I found it on the sidewalk.” Neil’s mouth twisted halfway into a smirk.

“Really. Is that why you won’t spend it, or do you like looking like a homeless person? The team is split, you know. Most of them think you’re trailer trash like Dan. Renee knows better. So do I. I think you’re something a little more like us.”

Andrew leaned into him, the word, “ _Runaway_ ,” bit clear into its base syllables as he said.

Neil flinched, his face twisting. So, Andrew was right. “Mind your own business.”

“Tonight is Mind Neil’s Business Night,” Andrew told him, mock-pleasant. “Didn’t you notice? Give me something real or I won’t let you stay here.”

“This isn’t your team. It isn’t your say.”

“Don’t tempt me to prove you wrong. How about I call the police and ask them to run a real check on you? You think they’ll find anything interesting?”

“That’s a hollow threat,” Neil said through his teeth. “The police would never do favours for someone like you.”

“I know a cop who would. If I called him tonight and told him you’re a serious problem child, he’d make it a priority. How cold is your trail?”

To be fair, he’d have to sell Neil as a kid in danger to catch Pig Higgins’ fancy. Everyone liked to be a hero – that was why they chose to be cops. That, and reminding people when they were the bad guys.

“Shut up.” Neil sounded like he was at the end of his rope. He was slurring more now – his tolerance was terrible. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“Because I don’t trust the way you look at him,” Andrew told him. “Edgar Allen is in our district and you are on my team. You, a know-nothing from Arizona who somehow managed to catch Kevin’s eye. You, a lie from head to foot, with a bag full of money and a hard-on for everything Kevin and Riko. Do you understand?”

Neil’s face shifted between confused and angry. “I’m not a mole. Are you kidding me?”

“Prove it. You take a minute to think it over. Think how badly you want to try my patience right now. I’ll be back.”

Andrew left him against the wall, pushing his way back through the crowd. Nicky was waiting at the stairs, eyes blown as he swayed along with the pounding beat and baseline.

“Don’t let him leave,” Andrew recommended. Nicky yelped something cheerful behind him as he pushed on, this time in the direction of the bar instead of the table. He walked alongside it and then turned into the recessed ‘employees only’ door beside it, entering the key code and then pushing it open with his back and twisting through the gap.

It was gratifying that Roland pushed inside less than two minutes later, nearly crashing into Andrew. Andrew hooked a hand into the front of his shirt, half pulling him into the empty locker room off one side of the hall.

“You have five minutes,” Andrew told him as he pushed him back into the cold bank of lockers on one wall. Roland’s hands pressed flat to the metal behind him, making a mock-disappointed face that sat odd against the pliant tilt of his hips and torso.

“You can’t make it ten?” he asked, tilting his head down to close the inch or two of space between their lips.

“Don’t try to make a deal when you know you can’t make it worth my while,” Andrew recommended, and cut off Roland’s indignant squawk with his mouth.

Roland was always more tolerable when he didn’t talk, but Andrew had admired the shape of him long before they did anything like this. Roland had a few inches of height on Andrew, but he was slighter, lithe rather than muscular, with bright brown eyes and a curling mouth like he always had a joke he was just dying to let you in on.

He wasn’t a slow learner, but he tended to forget himself when he got enthusiastic. When his hand twitched at his side, Andrew reached down and pressed it back into place, feeling the thrum of his heart under his own fingers. He felt the crease and curve of Roland’s lips against his own, knew it was from rueful amusement.

“Do you need to check your watch yet?” He asked, without pulling back. He tasted warm and a little like sweet fruit liquors.

Right then, Andrew’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He let go of Roland’s arm and took half a step back outside of the press of heat from Roland’s body, pulling it out to check it.

It was from Nicky: _where r you??? trouble w neil_

“I’m guessing that’s about your ‘nobody’,” Roland said. “He seems a little sweet to be running with your crowd.”

“Haven’t you heard that looks can be deceiving?” Andrew asked. “I need to go deal with this.”

“All work, no play. I get it,” Roland said. He was still sprawled back against the locker, shirt rucked over one hip from Andrew’s hand, mouth reddened and smiling. “Go on. Make sure they’re sticking to breaking glasses rather than furniture. Or faces.”

Andrew offered him a far more lackadaisical salute than what he’d given the bouncers and turned on his heel. Swinging through the door back into the club was like being swallowed alive, the soundproofing giving away to base so heavy he swore his heart sped up to keep in time.

Clubs were funny that way. The crowds he hated, the alcohol was one hell of an enticement, but it was the music that really made it something he could stand. It was hard to feel like he was a step from crashing with the music driving everything else out.

Aaron found him first, face black. “Where the fuck were you?”

Andrew pushed him aside with one hand. Behind him, Nicky was holding the limp form of Neil Josten like a ragdoll against him, his face panicked even through the haze of dust and alcohol.

Behind them, Kevin was arguing with a busboy Andrew didn’t recognize. Andrew looked to Nicky and said, dry, “If you were having trouble, someone obviously solved it.”

“He paid that kid to knock him out,” Nicky rushed out. “What the _actual fuck_.”

Well. That was one way to get out of this situation. Andrew tilted his head and said, “I think our night is over. Kevin.”

Kevin snarled one last thing at the busboy and then left him behind, rejoining the rest of them. “I can’t fucking-”

“Shut up,” Andrew advised him. “We’re leaving. Nicky, give me the keys.”

“You don’t think we should take him to a hospital?” Nicky asked. He was sobering up fast.

“I think that if he dies, it solves the problem for me,” Andrew replied. “It was self-inflicted. Start walking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think Andrew Minyard doesn't have a type, and that that type isn't 'pretty mouthy assholes', you're lying to yourselves.


	7. collateral

“Neil’s awake,” Nicky called as Andrew closed the front door. “He’s in the shower. He nearly killed Aaron twice already this morning, so I think he’s going to be fine.”

He appeared in the hallway to mug Kevin for the food he was carrying. Kevin held it away from him with a snarl – he was still hung over, and pissed off at all of them for denting Neil. Like it wasn’t Neil who’d got himself dented in the first place.

“It’s been a while,” Aaron noted from the lounge. “He might have drowned.”

“I nearly offered to keep him company,” Nicky said, and then rethought continuing in that vein after a quick glance at Andrew.

“He better fucking not have,” Kevin snapped. “ _Fuck off Nicky_.”

“Put it on the table then, I’m starving, come on,” Nicky told him, aggrieved but finally getting out of the way.

The shower was still running in the bathroom, the rumble of water in the pipes clearly audible even over Nicky and Kevin’s bickering. Andrew tilted his head. “How long has it been, exactly?”

“How long has…Neil been in the shower, do you mean?” Nicky asked. “Twenty minutes, maybe?”

“More like a half hour,” Aaron corrected boredly. “Probably fainted from the head injury.”

“ _Aaron_ ,” Nicky demanded, aghast. He evidently hadn’t considered that option. Andrew ignored them to go to the bathroom door, knocking on the wood. There was no noise besides the shower, not even the adjustment of a person moving inside.

The door was lockable, but it was the kind of door handle with a keyhole in the outside. Andrew picked it quickly and shoved it open, finding the shower curtain pulled but the room patently empty. The window was hanging open – it must have been a tight squeeze, but it was clear how Neil had gotten out.

“Hm,” Andrew said. He was sober – mostly – but he felt a thrill of something like victory low in his chest. “Looks like your pet has made a bid for freedom, Kevin!”

Kevin appeared in the hallway, and swore violently when he reached the same conclusion Andrew had. “Those idiots couldn’t even stop him from -”

“Oh, Kevin. Are you suggesting they should have held Neil against his will?” Andrew asked. “Let him run if he wants to.”

“He was meant to stay,” Kevin said. For a moment, even through the rage, he looked almost upset. Perhaps it was guilt – Andrew wouldn’t know.

“He had secrets he wanted to keep,” Andrew corrected. “Unless you think they’re worth your life, I would forget about it. And him.”

Kevin looked like he wanted to continue railing against Andrew, but he took one look at Andrew and reconsidered. Instead they took their food from the kitchen and ate silently, all in different rooms, Nicky distraught and trying to hide it, Aaron not even vaguely concerned. There was no reason to stay around afterwards – they got into the car, Andrew in the driver’s seat, and took the road back to campus.

With only the radio as background, Andrew took the opportunity to consider whether Neil would come back or not. He couldn’t imagine how one would justify bolting and then returning later to campus as though nothing had happened, and the Foxes weren’t stupid enough to believe that anyway, after Matt. On the other hand, that was a lot of money to leave behind for anyone.

That left two options – either Neil would return and lay the blame squarely at Andrew’s door, in which case they’d find out how serious Wymack really was about scrapping Kevin and the rest of them, or he just wouldn’t come back.

There was a risk there with the first option. Andrew needed collateral against that, because there was not much the team could do if Neil refused to blame Andrew for his disappearance. Thankfully, he knew precisely what to use. All three-quarters of a million of them.

Fox Tower was quiet when they returned with people sleeping off their hangovers, but at least a few of the inhabitants were awake. The door to the girls’ suite swung open as Andrew walked past, and Dan looked out in the hall. Her gaze zeroed straight onto them, going over faces and finding one missing.

“Where’s Neil?” she demanded.

“What, no hello?” Andrew said by way of reply.

“Tell me where he is,” she asked again, as though he hadn’t spoken. She looked furious, but also like she knew getting angry with Andrew would achieve nothing.

Andrew shrugged broadly. “I don’t know, captain. Isn’t that your job?”

“He spoke to Matt this morning and said you’d taken him to Columbia,” Dan said, through her teeth. “If you’ve done something to him -”

“Relax, relax,” Andrew said. “I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t even misplace him – he did that himself. He might show back up eventually, but that’s not on me.”

“I’m going to call coach,” she said, instead of what she looked like she wanted to say, _I’m going to kill you_. She slammed the door behind her, as though that were a threat she thought would shake Andrew.

Andrew waited until the other three were inside the suite before closing the door with him on the outside of it. Then he ventured to the rooms Neil shared with Matt and Gordon, picking his second lock of the day.

He cracked it and pushed the door, only for a foot to stop it from swinging all the way open. Matt stood on the other side – Andrew was good, but picking locks did make noise, and he had obviously heard it. His expression was stormy but he didn’t move to hit Andrew.

“Hello,” Andrew told him, mock-friendly.

“Where the fuck is Neil,” he demanded, no uptick at the end to indicate it as any kind of request.

“How would I know that?” Andrew asked. “You didn’t ask when you talked to him? I didn’t think you would mistake me as his keeper.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Matt said, voice low. “What do you want?”

“Maybe he’s coming back. Maybe I want to organize something for him when he gets here,” Andrew said, even though his tone indicated anything but. Apparently when Neil and Matt had spoken this morning, Neil had considered the idea that Andrew might try and get to his things. How irritating. Andrew wanted to make a point anyway, and he leaned into the door to press against Matt’s foot.

“You’re not coming in here,” Matt warned. His eyes said _try it_ , and Andrew wanted to very badly. Underneath the victory from before was the creeping understanding that somehow Neil would be back, and Andrew wasn’t accustomed to frustration but he suspected it might feel like this. None of his methods were particularly indirect, but he was done playing nice. On all fronts.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, with a little show of teeth.

“Andrew,” a very familiar voice interrupted him. Renee.

She stood out of his reach, a habit she’d picked up when she noticed how much Andrew disliked people appearing inside his generous allocation of personal space. She had also put herself to his back, so he couldn’t see her and Matt at the same time – neat trick, and it was working because of her and Matt, they all knew who was the greater threat.

Andrew took a step back. Renee had picked her side a long time ago, and though she usually stood as a neutral party, Andrew knew better than anyone exactly what side that was. He could afford a lot, but going against her was a very steep deal.

It wasn’t worth his time. He turned on his heel and left, going past his suite door and to the stairwell.

Up on the roof it was bright-cold like pinpricks all over his skin. He had a stash of leftover crackers in his pocket, and he swallowed one, feeling the immediate brush of something like a distant cousin of a high. It was somewhat hard to believe that the same drugs that had put Neil on his ass last night could barely touch Andrew, but he had no choice but to believe it.

He smoked his way through a few cigarettes and then returned to their rooms, where the others were quietly pretending to be unbothered, or in Aaron’s case actually unbothered. Andrew sat on the desk by the window and absently killed time, feeling it fade into nothing.

His buzzing phone pulled him back a while later. He answered it already knowing who would be at the other end.

Wymack snarled, “You have five seconds to get your retarded psycho ass to my apartment! You even think about telling me no and I swear to god I’ll throw Kevin’s contract down a garbage disposal.”

Then he hung up. The threat was unnecessary, seeing as this wasn’t a problem Andrew was going to ignore, but it still felt like a concession when Andrew went down and got into the car like a dog being called to heel.

He only had himself to blame for that one. All the leashes he wore, and he’d put on another because Neil Josten was smarter – or perhaps luckier – than Andrew thought.

Wymack was waiting for him in the lounge of his own apartment, arms crossed. Andrew saw the precise second he realized Andrew was sober, and watched it make his expression even stormier.

“I swear to a god I don’t even believe in that we had a conversation about this,” Wymack said, his voice a rumble. “In this exact room.”

“That doesn’t sound familiar, Coach,” Andrew replied, without any play in his voice. It would have been pretend, and Wymack would have shredded him for it.

“I have a half-dead striker who apparently walked halfway back from Columbia, and I’m not stupid enough to believe that that isn’t to do with you.”

“Ask him,” Andrew said. “I didn’t tell him to climb out a bathroom window like some kind of hostage.”

“I told you I wouldn’t stand for you making a repeat of last year. Whatever this about, it ends today. Even if I have to kick you and your lot out myself.”

“This isn’t a repeat,” Andrew said. “You know why I did it. I don’t know why you bother to pretend to be surprised by me. Besides, your striker made it back in one piece – I don’t really know what it is you have to complain about.”

Wymack’s response was explosive, but it was also repetitive, and Andrew’s focus had turned to the sound of the bathroom door opening and the face that appeared in the doorway over Wymack’s shoulder.

Today Neil was back to brown-eyed and plain again. He swam in Wymack’s clothes, looking even slighter than usual, and the shower hadn’t eased his fever-bright flushed cheeks set in grey skin. It was a great injustice to Andrew had he looked so unassuming – it was really no wonder the Foxes were so protective of him, when he was so abjectly pathetic.

“Have a nice stroll?” Andrew asked, straight over top of Wymack’s refrain.

Whatever you wanted to say about Neil Josten, it never would have been that he didn’t have a temper. In the face of Andrew’s bitter cold, his, “Fuck you,” was blistering.

Wymack snapped his fingers directly in Andrew’s face. “I don’t know what the beef is between you two, but it ends here and now. Abby and I made it clear we wouldn’t tolerate a repeat of last year, Andrew.”

“This isn’t a repeat,” Andrew said again, impatient. “We only gave him crackers. You think he’d have made it back here on his own otherwise?”

“Don’t ‘only’ me. What the fuck were you thinking?”

Andrew thought his expression said more than eloquently what he’d been thinking. To make sure, he said, “What were you thinking, bringing him here?”

Unexpectedly, Neil spoke up. “Coach, I need to talk to Andrew for a minute. Can we use your office?”

“No. I don’t trust you two not to kill each other, so you’re staying right here until this is resolved.”

There was a flicker of indecision on Neil’s face, there and then gone. Then he turned his gaze back on Andrew. “What the hell is your problem? How can you threaten Nicky for coming onto me but condone drugging me out of my mind against my will? What can’t you just leave me alone?”

Neil’s German was smooth and accentless – far better than Andrew’s own, with it’s American lean. And this was not an option he had considered, plain all-American Neil speaking the language the monsters considered their own. French _and_ German. Neil Josten was more talented than he’d led anyone to believe.

“That’s unexpected,” Andrew noted, after a long moment. “Did no one tell you I hate surprises?”

Neil’s face twisted. “What makes you think I care?”

“How many languages do you speak, runaway?”

“Tell me why you did that,” Neil demanded, ignoring the question.

“I already did. I’m still waiting for your answer.”

“I answered you. I told you I’m not a mole. You’re insane if you think I am.”

The obvious assumption being that Neil didn’t think Andrew was insane. Andrew said, “Then correct me.”

“Give me a reason,” Neil replied, like Andrew hadn’t already given him a good one in _I will kill you_. Apparently Neil wasn’t afraid of dying – or not a normal amount, anyway – but he was certainly afraid of something.

“Besides the obvious? If I can’t get an answer from you, I’ll get it wherever I can. However about I start with your parents?”

“Good luck,” Neil said, all ice. “They’re dead.”

Andrew tilted his head. “Did you kill them?”

Neil stared at him for a long moment, which was as good as a no. Then he asked, “Did you kill yours?”

Andrew flicked his fingers. “I don’t have parents.”

He wondered for a moment whether he should have said yes – it might have frightened Neil straight into a truthful answer. But Tilda Minyard killed herself, and after a second Neil said, “I didn’t kill my parents. Riko’s family did.”

There was a fight in his voice, like he was struggling to get the words out. It seemed like fear rather than grief – interesting, interesting. Not so interesting as the idea that also those articles on Kevin might actually be about Riko, collected out of a twisted grudge.

“My father was a gopher for a group who did business with the Moriyamas,” Neil explained. “In the grand scheme of things he wasn’t worth much, but he knew a lot of names and he knew how to move product. He did some business out of Edgar Allen, which is how I met Kevin and Riko. I didn’t know who they were back then. I was just excited to meet kids my age. I thought we were going to be friends.”

That was a compelling image – this dot of a man, in the same circle as Riko Moriyama. Neil continued, “Then my father started getting cocky, started getting stupid, and tried skimming from payments. He took Moriyama money that was meant for his boss. They found out, of course. The Moriyamas executed him and my mother before his boss could get to him. I took what he’d stolen and ran. I’ve been running ever since.”

It should have been a somber story, but Neil was smiling, slick and cruel. It was real. Andrew knew it must have been, because Neil reached up to his own face with one curling hand like he meant to pry it off himself.

“I’m lucky Kevin doesn’t recognize me,” he said. “I don’t know if he even remembers meeting me, but I remember him. Seeing him helps me remember my parents. He’s all I have left of my real life. But if Kevin or Riko recognizes me and word makes it back to my father’s boss, I know what will happen to me.”

It sounded true. Andrew considered it for a long moment, looking for holes, before stepping up to Neil. He saw Wymack adjust his weight like he meant to step between them, but he didn’t follow through.

“Then why did you come here?” Andrew asked Neil.

“Because I’m tired,” he replied. “I have nowhere else to go, and I’m too jealous of Kevin to stay away from him. He knows what it’s like to hate every day of his life, to wake up afraid every day, but he’s got you at his back telling him everything’s going to be okay. He has everything, even when he’s lost everything, and I’m – nothing. I’ll always have and be nothing.”

_Nothing_. The word was a stone dropping into the lake inside Andrew, sending ripples through him. He felt them in his fingers when he reached up to pry Neil’s hand off of his own face, looking him full in the eye without the shelter of it between them.

It was a sad sad story, and Andrew did not care about it even slightly. What interested him was that last part, the explanation for why Neil was here. It was – he seemed to believe absolutely when he said _he has everything, even when he’s lost everything_ , and Andrew didn’t think jealousy was the real driver here.

_I’ll always have and be nothing_.

Familiarity was a funny thing. Neil said, quietly, “Let me stay. I’m not ready to give this up yet.”

Andrew let go of him. “Keep it if you can. You and I both know it won’t last long.”

Gang warfare was different from Kevin’s sob story. Andrew didn’t know the Moriyamas personally, but he suspected that they would stop at nothing to exact their revenge on a runaway who’d robbed them blind. And that was without the likelihood that someone, sooner or later, would recognize him.

Neil swallowed lightly. “I’ll be gone by our match against Edgar Allen. I don’t look now how I looked then, but I can’t risk Riko’s family recognizing me.”

“Such an unexpected will to survive from someone who has nothing to live for. Next time we have a little heart-to-heart like this, maybe I’ll ask you to justify that,” Andrew said. Because oh, that’s familiar too. Andrew knows the myriad ways you can convince yourself day in and day out that being alive is somehow worth it.

“Let’s not talk like this ever again.

“Let’s not.”

Neil paused, eyes flickering. “Are you going to tell Kevin?”

“Don’t ask me stupid questions.” Neil’s secrets were his to keep. Also, there was no advantage for Andrew to tell Kevin – it would just spook him.

Neil sucked in a breath, closing his eyes. It made him look even more exhausted. Andrew might have expected a trace of victory, but Neil just seemed relieved.

“We’re leaving,” Andrew said, shifting back to English for Wymack’s benefit. Their coach had been watching them go back and forth like he was spectating a tennis match, no comprehension in his face.

“Where are we going?” Neil asked, opening his eyes.

“Back to the dorm. Your teammates have been annoying us since we got back, demanding we return to Columbia and scour the streets in search of you.”

“He can stay here if he wants,” Wymack asserted. “I can call Dan to let her know he’s safe.”

That would have been a comforting lie, not that any of them really knew it. Andrew didn’t bother to look at him as he said, “Neil wants to come with me.”

The man himself met Andrew’s eyes at that, a glancing blow. There was no argument in his face, all resistance washed out of him.

“Thanks for the shower,” he said to Wymack. “I’ll wash your clothes and bring them back on Monday.”

Wymack looked between them like he wondered if they’d planned to settle things once and for in a death match rather than settled their issues. “No rush.”

“Going now,” Andrew said, and left. Neil followed him, and was silent in the car the entire way back to the dorm.

The rest of the team was waiting for them in the hall when they returned. Neil shrunk like he wanted to bolt past them, but Dan stopped him and patted him down gently like she half-expected him to bleeding out under the shirt he was wearing like a dress. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Neil replied. He’d gone still to permit Dan’s ministrations, impatient but understanding. His parents were dead, so perhaps he was looking for a mother figure.

“Andrew?” Kevin asked. It wasn’t a question of _are you okay?_ It was _what is happening?_ There was relief writ on his face at the sight of Neil, but it was tempered with uncertainty. So much concern for the fate of someone who called himself nothing.

Andrew paused in the doorway and looked him straight on. “I’m washing my hands of this. He’s your problem now.”

He didn’t wait for a response before going into the suite. Aaron and Nicky followed him, and Kevin a moment later. The door closed behind him, shutting out the rest of the busybodies at last.

Aaron said, “So, that’s it?” Andrew ignored him, heading further into the suite. He turned into the bedroom, going to his set of drawers where they were stacked against the wall.

“Here,” came from behind him. Andrew turned in time to snatch the bottle Kevin threw to him out of the air, feeling the familiar weight and rattle.

Kevin leaned against the doorframe, faux casual. “He’s staying.”

“Your habit of stating the obvious is not endearing,” Andrew said, hopping up onto the top of the dresser by the window.

“What did he say, for you to let him?”

“You would have to ask him that.”

Kevin’s frown deepened. “Is this the end of you two fighting, then? Can we focus on Exy now?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Andrew advised. _He’s your problem now._

Kevin seemed to take that as final confirmation, nodding briskly before he turned away to the lounge. Andrew dug the carton of cigarettes from his pocket and lit up, pondering Kevin’s choice of words. Somehow he doubted that this would be the end of anything to do with Neil Josten.


	8. jackals

With full permission to do what he liked with Neil, Kevin seemed to have picked staring at him. Andrew thought that was unlikely to make Neil any less useless as a striker, but what did he know.

That was until Monday night, when he said to Andrew, “I’ll meet you at the car in five minutes.”

Andrew was too sober to care, waving a hand over his shoulder before going downstairs. The Kevin who joined him a few minutes later was markedly more pissed off than the one he’d last seen.

“I can’t even get close to him now, thanks to you,” he said, thumping into the passenger seat. Andrew didn’t have to ask who he meant. “If we’re going to get anywhere, he must practice with me. We don’t have time for this.”

“Kevin,” Andrew said. “Tell someone who cares.”

Kevin fumed through throwing balls at the wall and his collection of cones, and gave Andrew the silent treatment most of the next day. It was nice. Not so nice was the fact that Kevin did somehow get Neil to join him the next night.

Andrew was waiting in the car again when the passenger door opened, and Kevin leaned in over him. “I can drive, you know.”

Andrew, eyes still closed, said into his folded arms, “The day I let you drive my car is the day I’m dead. Are you getting in or are we going back to bed?”

Kevin sighed gustily, but got into the car. Behind them, Andrew heard the back door open and Neil slide inside, settling into the middle seat. As soon as the doors clicked closed behind them both, Andrew sat up and started the car to take them to the court.

He waited for them to change out, and then went up into the stands while they headed into the court. It was no more exciting to watch with two of them in there than it was with just Kevin, though Andrew could feel a very, very vague thread of amusement at the sight of Neil failing miserably.

He was lying on his back between the rows of seats by the time he heard the door opening and closing below, and the sound of footsteps up the stairs towards him.

“Andrew,” Kevin said. “Get up. We’re going.”

“Finally.” Andrew felt the drift in the word towards a slur and locked down on it. It was late, he was crashing, but he didn’t want any of that to show.

“You could join us,” Kevin said. That was interesting – he hadn’t bothered to make that offer to Andrew in months.

“Why would I?” Andrew asked, without moving.

“You would get less bored if you were actually doing something.”

“I can’t think of anything more boring than standing in full gear watching Neil Josten embarrass himself while you verbally abuse him,” Andrew said. “The answer is no.”

Kevin sighed again, like he always did – as though Andrew was being particularly difficult, like he was a petulant child rather than a man with all kinds of reasons to not be interested in two extra hours of practice, or the sport of Exy itself.

“We’re going,” Kevin repeated, turning and going back down the steps. After a moment Andrew pushed himself up and followed him, working the pins-and-needles out of his extremities.

On Tuesday, Kevin had gone from staring to his usual abrasive self, though it was centered on Neil. It was a relief to leave him at the court on Wednesday afternoon for Andrew’s appointment with Betsy.

He knew as soon as he walked into the office that someone had told her about what had happened in Columbia. Wymack, Andrew suspected, or Abby once Wymack had told her. She looked exactly the same as she always did, but Andrew could read the evaluation in her eyes in the split second between him walking through the door and her mastering it.

“Have a seat,” she said. “Would you like a drink?”

“Skip to the end,” he replied, thumping into a seat. “What’s the most pressing question on your list today? Let’s start with that. My attention span isn’t feeling very long today.” He was adjusting his medication for the start of the school year, so he did have a reason to be short on patience.

She raised an eyebrow very slightly, but didn’t comment on that. “Why repeat what happened last year with another player?”

“Because it worked,” Andrew said.

“Worked?”

“Worked. Matt got a grip, Aaron didn’t relapse, and no one was damaged.”

“Your definition of ‘damaged’, as ever, requires some work,” Betsy said. “Also, I like to think we can do better than ‘no one died’ as a measure of success.”

“Your goals are lofty and probably unattainable. Probably best to give up on them now,” Andrew recommended. “You have my answer. Next question.”

“This isn’t an interrogation, Andrew.”

“I know. The cops have never tried to correct my definition of the word ‘damaged’, for a start. Next question, before I lose patience.”

“Are you satisfied?”

“In general, or specifically?”

“Don’t talk in circles. You know what I’m referring to.” Behind her glasses, Betsy’s eyes had gone steely. She didn’t like Andrew being evasive, called it untruthfulness disguised as pretty words. That was ironic, because most words turned ugly in Andrew’s mouth, according to the people who listened to them.

Perhaps they just didn’t like the sound of truth as much as Betsy did.

“In regards to Neil Josten, then yes,” Andrew said. “I am satisfied.”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Betsy said. “Now, shall we revisit the niceties, or would you like to go straight to me asking you to recount your week in detail?”

Andrew laughed. “This is why I keep you around.”

She smiled back at him, her face creasing about the eyes behind her glasses. “So, how was your week, Andrew?”

 

* * *

 

On Wednesday evening after practice, Andrew went to the door of the girls’ suite and knocked once.

Allison was the one to open it. She looked down at Andrew with a wincing grimace and said, “Fuck off.”

“Ever so polite,” Andrew replied. “Is Renee in?”

“Is that Andrew?” A voice called from over Allison’s shoulder.

Allison replied, “Make him go away before Dan realizes he’s here.”

Renee appeared at Allison’s side and smiled at the sight of Andrew. “Hello! Is everything alright?”

“If it isn’t, you can especially fuck off,” Allison cut in. She smiled like a razorblade, white glossy white against her lipstick, and she was obviously not Andrew’s type but for a split second he could perhaps just vaguely see the appeal in a killer who played princess until it counted.

“I want to borrow you,” Andrew said to Renee directly. He was jittery, and earning bruises sounded like a good way to work it out.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll meet you there in ten.”

He spun away to head towards the stairwell, though the distance didn’t stop him from hearing Allison’s hissed complaints to Renee. He went down the lower level room they usually used and made sure all the chairs and desks were pushed aside – Renee had a habit of using anything in arm’s reach to bruise Andrew, and was quietly critical when Andrew didn’t do the same.

Renee joined him precisely ten minutes later, dressed down in a loose blouse and running tights. She kicked off her shoes, and after a moment’s consideration Andrew did the same, heaping his boots next to hers by the door.

They’d done enough of this that she usually didn’t bother to try and coax Andrew into conversation, but clearly today she was feeling chatty.

“I’ve missed this,” she said, stretching out a little. Practice finished recently enough that they were both still warm enough to not risk soft tissue injuries – beside the obvious, of course – but Andrew only watched her flex her shoulders and stretch her legs. “I’m glad we’re finally getting a chance to catch up. It’s been too long.”

Andrew has been too busy with Kevin for them to fall back into their usual habits of chatting during breaks at practice, of course. He shrugged and offered her a grin. “I’m sure it’s going to be a long year.”

“Hm. What it you said last year, about our future recruit?” Renee asked, head tilting in line with her smile. “A quiet child?”

“I should have known better,” Andrew replied.

“He’s a little bit of a mystery.” There was no expectation in her voice that Andrew would start telling her Neil’s secrets, presuming that he knew them at all. It was merely an observation, or a statement of fact. And even now, Andrew couldn’t find it in himself to disagree. “I don’t think he likes me, either.”

“He is afraid of you,” he told her. It might have been offensive that Andrew could read more fear in Neil when he looked at Renee than he could when Neil looked at him, if Renee weren’t Renee.

“Hm,” she said again. She didn’t sound surprised. “Ready?”

Andrew slid into position instead of answering, stepping into the centre of the room and squaring up. Renee matched him, raising her hands. She was bare-fisted just like he was, because that was what they did. Bruised and split knuckles didn’t mean much to people like them.

Andrew threw the first punch, and Renee immediately put him onto the defensive with a flurry of blows aimed centre mass, designed to throw him off balance. He was faster than her, and had more energy, but she was unhesitatingly brutal and even after a year surpassed him in terms of skill.

It had taken him a while to get over the idea that she was better than him. He had needed to, though, so that he could start learning from her.

Once he regained his footing, he responded with a quick feint and then a series of left-hand body blows that she had to step back to avoid, only for her to reach for his arm and try to grab hold of him.

It went on like that for a while, them trading the advantage back and forth. Andrew always felt as though she wanted to put him through his paces when they sparred, especially at first, and especially when neither of them held a knife. He was lost in their whip-quick matching movements, so he almost startled when she spoke again.

“You let him stay,” she observed.

“Obviously,” Andrew answered, and narrowly avoided her hitting him in the face. He ducked, and landed a shot on her ribs that she answered with a much harder hit to his shoulder. He felt a jolt of nerve pain, but thankfully his arm didn’t go numb.

“Is he yours, or mine?” she asked.

They divided the team between the two of them because Andrew only had the wherewithal to protect his own. Andrew considered that for a moment, and then said, “Too early to tell.”

“Because you still don’t trust him?”

Even through the high Andrew could feel the look he gave her was flat. “I don’t trust anybody.”

A different person might have rolled their eyes. Renee just looked considering for a moment, and then said, “Of course. Let me know when you come to a decision.”

Then she hooked a leg around Andrew’s and dumped him of his back on the carpet. “Break for five.”

Somehow Andrew wasn’t winded, but he gave it a moment before pushing himself up to sitting. These days Renee was careful about not kicking someone who was already down, unless the situation called for it or she and Andrew were going no-holds-barred against one another.

She sat down cross-legged near to him, resting her elbows on the floor and stretching her spine. Her knuckles were already reddened, and Andrew could feel his own thudding in time with his heart.

“Class starts soon,” she said, apropos nothing. “Are you ready?”

“Haven’t you heard? We lose our scholarships when we don’t go to class.”

“You know what I mean.”

“And you know what I mean.”

“Pre-season meetings with Betsy, too,” Renee observed, changing the subject rapidly. She often did that, presumably to hold Andrew’s attention. “I hope she had a good summer.”

“She spent it working with headcases like me. How good do you expect it was going to be?” Andrew asked, a little bit sharp about his smile.

“Well, if they’re anything like you, I expect she finds it immensely satisfying,” Renee said stoutly, because she liked to believe in the good in people and was irritatingly persistent in trying to identify it in Andrew. “Has Neil met her yet?”

“Not yet,” Andrew said, and then laughed. “Oh, amusing. He will hate her.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he has secrets that he wants to keep, and a distinct distrust in authority figures.”

“Five dollars that you’re wrong,” Renee offered with a smile. “I think he won’t be able to help but like her.”

“That’s easy money,” Andrew replied. “Done. Not everyone likes shrinks, Renee.”

“Maybe so, but even you like this one in particular,” Renee said. “I suppose we’ll find out tomorrow. Ready to go again?”

 

* * *

 

The next day, Renee handed him back the key to his car with a five-dollar bill curled around it.

 

* * *

 

The worst part of changing his medication schedule was always the unpredictable crashes.

He woke to hands on him, and moved before he did anything else. His fist connected so hard he felt shockwaves up through his wrist, but it worked – he felt the weight of whoever was leaning over him sink backwards, wheezing pathetically.

Then his eyes opened. He wasn’t – in his bed. He was on a couch, and when he twisted to see who he’d just hit, already preparing himself for a second attempt at holding him down, it was –

\- Nicky.

“Nicky, are you dying?” Andrew asked. His voice sounded stupidly surprised to his own ears.

“I’m good,” Nicky replied in a rasp. Nicky, his stupid, stubborn cousin, who was incapable of putting two and two together before he got a broken sternum for his trouble.

“We’re done here,” Kevin said. He sounded unbothered, perhaps a little impatient. Perhaps Andrew was wasting his valuable time again. “Let’s go.”

Andrew looked to him, and then around at the others. They all appeared to be in various stages of sympathetic wince, except for Wymack, who looked like he was waiting.

“I missed the powwow,” Andrew said.

“Kevin can summarize it for you later,” Wymack said, waving a hand. “Clear out of here before I decide you’re all better off doing more laps.”

The others almost left a dust cloud, they cleared out so quickly. Andrew, who knew exactly how likely Wymack was to follow through on that threat, moved a little slower. The adrenaline was still singing in his blood in time with his heart, beating _a-live, a-live, a-live_.

His fist hurt. He was safe as he ever got. His mind knew that even when his body didn’t.

 

* * *

 

It was amazing how excited PSU students could get over a game their team was definitely going to lose.

Andrew was never embroiled in the hysteria, his jersey aside. People knew enough about him to stay away, and the ones who didn’t were usually quick to correct themselves once Andrew walked straight past them without a look.

Fortuitously, this year the general student populace was more concerned with the newest Fox and the spectre of seeing Kevin Day walk onto the court again. Neil’s identity had gone public as of this morning, and Nicky reported that the stories and speculation on him were everywhere.

There was no mention of the truth Neil had given Andrew in any of it. That was not surprising. The media were far more interested in Kevin’s opinion on Neil, and Kevin had given them plenty to talk about in that regard.

Andrew remembered Neil’s disbelief when Andrew had told him Kevin’s promises to the board. That Neil would be pro, and that he would be Court. He wondered whether seeing it on the internet made it any more believable.

Unsurprisingly, Dan came to check on them that evening – on Andrew in particular. Nicky let her into their room with a smile, but it was Andrew her eyes went to first.

He looked back from his perch on the desk, and let her see his smile. “O captain, our captain. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Dan looked wary just for a second, because Andrew rarely deigned to talk with her. It didn’t last. She said, “Just checking in on you all.”

“Now, now. Don’t lie. It’s not Aaron and Nicky who need your eye on them. Kevin, perhaps,” Andrew said. “But I know you’re here for me.”

She didn’t reply, which Andrew took as a yes. He continued, “Checking to make sure whether I’ll be on the leash tonght?”

“You know, the dog metaphors are a little old,” Dan answered coolly. Her pride was in all of them, even in him, and she’d been called ‘bitch’ enough to hate that kind of language from anyone, including her teammates. The irony of her calling him ‘monster’ must have escaped her.

“Not inaccurate, though,” Andrew said, impish. “Don’t worry. I won’t break anything.”

“To be honest, I’m more worried about you letting Breckenridge score at will,” Dan replied.

He grinned. “You know better.”

She looked at him for a long moment, mouth tense, and then nodded and turned away. He called, “Good pep talk!” just before the door closed behind her.

“You don’t need to wind her up so much,” Nicky grumbled from the kitchen. Andrew ignored him completely.

“Are you still doing that this year?” Kevin asked Andrew more seriously. He was leaning in the doorway to the hall, arms crossed.

“Playing Exy? Apparently.”

“ _No_. I’m talking about skipping your meds.”

“Do you really want to deny me the joy of purposely risking vomiting on the court in front of a home crowd, Kevin? For shame.”

Kevin was terrified of people finding out, and they both knew it. After a moment Kevin seemed to realize that he wasn’t going to get a real conversation out of Andrew and turned away in an unintentional imitation of Dan.

Whatever his complaints, it didn’t stop Kevin from accepting the pill bottle Andrew tossed to him just before they left the Tower for the stadium. They met the rest of the team in the hallway and proceeded down to the parking lot, though it took twice the usual amount of time to get to the court in the mass of traffic.

Nicky drove them between the cop cars and the two ambulances in attendance to get into the athlete parking. “Hey, which of those do you think are for us?”

“All of them,” Aaron muttered, eyes scanning the faces of the uniformed police watching the car go past.

The checks the guards did on them before they let them inside were frankly laughable. Andrew, with steel at his arms, ignored them and pushed through to the changing room. He paused for a second when he felt Kevin divert from behind him, but continued when he noticed that Kevin had Neil by the collar and was tugging him in the direction of the court.

By the time Andrew stepped out into the lounge in uniform, he could just begin to feel his high winding down from the scratch of discomfort of the protective collar at his throat, and the itching in his palms. He ignored it in favour of half-listening to the others chit-chatting about the Jackals’ Number 16, the backliner who looked like a footballer. He tuned back in properly to the sound of Wymack saying his name.

“-Andrew and Renee twice through each. Andrew, keep them on our side. You hit a single practice shot onto the Jackals’ side of the court when they’re warming up and I won’t start you until second half.”

That was a boring threat. More interesting was the evaluating look Neil turned on Andrew at that for a long moment, like he was trying to read something off of Andrew’s face. Clearly the upperclassmen had mentioned Andrew and Wymack’s deal to him – Neil wasn’t screaming it out to the rest of the world yet, but considering that he hadn’t when he’d dealt with Andrew sober before, it was unsurprising.

The crowds screamed when they walked onto the court to warm up, loud and doomed to disappointment. Andrew wondered with a slim taste of amusement when the boos would begin, and then focused on the easy stretch of drills.

The Jackals won first serve, the Foxes home court. Kevin walked on first, and every fan filling the stadium abruptly howled at the sight of him in gear and holding a racquet, albeit in his other hand. They didn’t care what team Kevin was playing for, only that he was playing at all.

Pathetic, really.

Andrew was last on in goal, with Matt and Aaron in front of him. Up in half court, the strikers were talking shit about and to each other, culminating in Seth flipping Kevin off. Typical Fox teamwork.

Andrew was buzzing across his body a little, feeling the tick down of the crash start all over again. A half was forty-five minutes. Somewhere in the back of his head he began to count down.

Overhead, the buzzer went off for start, heralded by the crack of a racquet against the ball. From this angle the starting positions break in a hurry, the Jackals and Foxes surging forward at the same time.

The game started rough from the second one of the Jackal strikers caught the ball and was promptly knocked aside by Aaron before they could go anywhere. The crowd roared their approval overhead as the ball bounced off half court where Dan collected it and passed it to Gordon.

Andrew waited, watching, as the gap between him and his defense widened, Matt and Aaron forcing the Jackal strikers away. Down the other end, Gorilla gave Gordon’s racquet a love tap and sent the ball and the racquet flying. Gorilla scooped the ball and threw it in one mighty heave down towards Andrew’s goal.

Andrew didn’t move. It hit the wall a few inches outside of the goal and rolled away – all strength, no aim. Boring.

Then one of the opposition strikers ducked around Matt and ran for it, forcing Andrew to finally adjust his stance in preparation. They take a fast shot on goal that he smashes back down the middle of the court towards Dan. The other dealer snatches it first and makes another bid for home court, before being bowled over by Dan a second after passing the ball to the Jackal striker again.

Aaron intercepted it neat and quick, throwing it to Andrew to clear out. The game proceeded like that, quick and brutal and a little dull right up until the Jackals knocked Aaron down and pressed into first-fourth. Andrew repelled the first shot, bouncing it off the striker’s helmet, and then the second before they were too close for him to clear the ball out of his space.

He aimed high but Gorilla caught it from the air and made a bid for goal. Matt took both of them out in one, but a Jackal striker got to the ball first. Andrew saw from his peripheral vision the goal go red behind him as the ball bounced away – too slow.

The Breckenridge fans were audible going wild even through the Plexiglass. The Jackals jogged back down the court, slapping each other on the backs. Gorilla was the last of them, disentangling himself from Matt on the floor. He stopped by the goal.

“You’re not as good as everyone makes you out to be, psycho,” he said.

Andrew, less sober, would have laughed. As it was, he folded his arms over the top of his racquet and didn’t deign to reply. After a second Gorilla waved his dismissal and headed back to his own side of the court.

Down the other end, Gordon threw a punch at Kevin, and Kevin retaliated. It was amazing how two men so generally fearful could try and tear each other apart – Andrew ignored them, uncaring. It was a waste of his time to intervene, especially when Dan was right there to pull them apart and scold them.

It takes ten seconds after the next serve for Kevin to score, knocking down his mark to make a run on goal. The cheering at that was ten times that of the Breckenridge fans, with the brash discordancy of Palmetto’s fight song underneath it.

They were twenty minutes into the half when Gorilla took Gordon out. The alarm went off overhead, Matt threw the ball to Andrew to keep, Gordon was helped off, and their newest player emerged through the door like a baby deer to the slaughter.

Andrew hadn’t been lying with what he’d said to Neil during their first proper meeting, in the car on the way from the airport. _Don’t be so afraid to die. If you are, you have no place on our court._ He wondered if the obsessive would take that advice as given.

Neil’s starting spot was against the home wall, and he jogged past most of the players crushed into first-fourth to get to it. As he did, the Jack dealer called out, “Is it true? Coach says you’re a one-year rookie.”

“Are you kidding me?” Kevin’s backliner mark demanded. “A national champion and an amateur? South Carolina’s gotten even crazier than usual.”

“An amateur and a cripple, you mean,” the Jackal dealer replied.

Andrew’s racquet smashed against the goal hard enough to make several people jerk in surprise. He felt the remnants of a smile carve into his face as the Jackals – and a few Foxes – turned wary looks on him, but no one spoke again. He stepped back into his territory, satisfied, and waited for the buzzer.

When it sounded, he raised the ball in his hand.

“Hey, Pinocchio,” he said, without looking. His voice sounded bright and twisted, a mockery of itself. “Time to run.” _Your speciality._ “This one’s for you.”


	9. fairytales

Taking his meds on the bench always meant Andrew stayed up late after games, but this time he was at least doing it with a purpose.

“Tell me a story, Kevin,” he said around his smile. “Don’t stop – you know you won’t like it if you fall asleep.”

“Tell you a – Andrew,” Kevin said. “I’m exhausted.”

“You should have thought of that when you agreed to Kathy Ferdinand’s song-and-dance,” Andrew informed him cheerfully. “No, don’t sit down.”

“You’re going to make me stand here until 1AM,” Kevin said, half disbelieving and half resigned.

“It’s your hand that’s fucked up, not your legs,” Andrew answered, earning a black snarling scowl. Kevin had put braces on his wrists as soon as they got back – apparently Gorilla had jolted something loose. Andrew hoped it wasn’t his confidence. He’d heard it was difficult to get that back.

“I’ll make you a drink,” Nicky offered sympathetically. The glass he put into Kevin’s hand was supposedly mixed, but Andrew suspected it was mostly vodka.

Aaron and Nicky collapsed into the beanbag chairs with drinks of their own. Andrew, who was perched by the window to smoke, said, “Go on then.”

“What, you want a fairytale?” Kevin sneered, before draining half of his drink. Andrew stared at him until he said, “God, fine.”

“Get on with it, history major,” Andrew grinned.

Halfway through Kevin’s scintillating retelling of the factors leading to the second World War, Aaron said, “Andrew, I will kill you.”

“Did you want to carry him down to the bus when he won’t wake up in a few hours?” Nicky hissed. “Keep going, Kev. I’m fascinated.”

“I’m going to kill him too,” Aaron muttered. He snatched the now-empty glass from Kevin’s hand and filled it with straight vodka along with his own before handing it back.

By the time there was a knock at the door, Kevin’s voice had slowed to a crawl, but he was still talking. Andrew had relented and allowed him to sit, but only on the floor. Aaron was jerking from a half doze to kick him occasionally. It was the closest thing to a team effort Andrew had seen from him in living memory.

“Coming!” Nicky hollered without moving or opening his eyes.

“Get out here!” Wymack demanded from the other side, apparently not caring about the other athletes on the floor enough to adjust his volume.

They were the last ones out in the hall. Wymack pointed at Kevin and demanded, “How the hell did they wake you up?”

“They didn’t let me sleep,” Kevin replied, with a killer look for Andrew that he ignored.

“Smart,” Wymack commented, and then waved to the stairs. “Let’s go.”

The bus was parked out back, and Andrew went straight down to his usual seat at the back. Kevin crammed himself half-flat in the seat in front of him, and was asleep within moments.

Andrew took a little longer, adjusting to the engine noise and the movement of the bus as Wymack drove out off campus towards the highway. He pressed his spine into the back of the seat, curling onto his side. The lull of his cooling blood had him falling into sleep before he realised.

He woke to a sudden sharp impact, jerking and driving an elbow into the back of the seat in front of him. The pain startled him into full wakefulness.

“Give it back,” Wymack demanded, his hand held out and a scowl fixed to his face. Andrew hated that some of the tension eased out of his body at the sight of him. He sat up, bringing Wymack’s wallet off of the floor where it had fallen as he did so and putting it into Wymack’s outstretched hand.

Wymack put it back in his pocket as he moved up to Kevin’s seat and started the usual rigmarole of returning him to consciousness. Andrew tuned it out in favour of savouring the rare few minutes of clarity that he got on waking, where his brain wasn’t trying eat itself and take his body with it.

He leaned against the window, peering out at the parking lot they’d stopped in. “Are we here?”

“Close enough,” Wymack replied. “You know what to do.”

He pulled Kevin out of his seat and forced him to stand up straight when shaking didn’t seem to be doing the trick. “Walk. Don’t stop. If you even think of sitting down I’ll kick your ass.”

Wymack stayed down the back of the bus, arms crossed, watching Kevin and the other Foxes. He muttered, “Should have put a cone down there,” as Kevin turned back. Andrew didn’t look, but he didn’t need to in order to know that moving was only barely enough to keep Kevin awake.

“Kevin,” Andrew said eventually, shifting in his seat and hearing Wymack move in his response. _Babysitter._ Anyone would think that Andrew hadn’t lived medicated for years before he even heard the name David Wymack.

Kevin appeared by his seat, digging Andrew’s drugs out of his pocket. He and Wymack both watched Andrew dry-swallow one and then put the bottle back in his own pocket.

Abby and Renee returned with food and coffee, handing them out around the bus. By the time they’d eaten and driven the final fifteen minutes to the studio, the rest of the Foxes were awake and Andrew was back to buzzing.

In the studio parking lot Kathy Ferdinand herself came out to meet them, clasping Kevin’s hand as the two of them smiled gleaming and perfect at each other. They were both of a different brand, startlingly so against the backdrop of Dan play-fainting into Matt’s embrace, and the rest of the Foxes puzzled and amused by Kevin’s sudden adjustment to charming.

Kathy turned to the rest of them, still smiling like someone was paying her to. “You were amazing last night. Kevin, you have the magic touch. This team has been doing so much better since you transferred.”

Andrew wondered if Dan was choking back a response to that. Kevin saved her by saying, “They were already on their way up. They deserve their Class I status. This year will prove it.”

“Brilliant,” Kathy replied. Her eyes had settled on their newest member. “Neil Josten, good morning. I suppose you’ve already heard the good news? As of eleven o’clock last night, your name is the third-highest search string for NCAA Exy strikers. That puts you right after Riko and Kevin. How does it feel?”

Neil looked like it made him feel sick. White-knuckling his passivity, he replied, “I didn’t need to know that.”

“Did you talk to him?” Kathy asked Kevin.

“I didn’t thin we needed to talk about it,” Kevin replied.

Neil looked between the pair of them. “About what?”

“I want you on my show this morning.”

Neil stared at her like he was waiting for her to go on, or perhaps to laugh. Really, he should have seen this coming. Perhaps his time on the run had stunted his idea of the reality of college sports celebrity. Andrew had said, _keep it if you can. You and I both know it won’t last long_ , and this is what he’d meant.

“Everyone wants to know who you are,” Kathy said. The irony of her gesturing grandly about herself towards where the other Foxes stood appealed to Andrew. “You’re a mystery addition to the Fox line, a rookie out of a tiny town in Arizona. Coach Hernandez says you picked Exy up in a year by reading a guidebook and showing up to practice. Kevin says you’re going to sign with the US Court after graduation. Such ambitions and dreams from such a humble beginning, don’t you think? It’s time for your debut.”

“No,” Neil replied, point blank, and then shook his head. “No. I’m not interested.”

Kathy’s smiled didn’t do anything so crass as falter, but Andrew would have sworn it moved for a second. When she reached out to Neil, Neil back out of reach. She said, “Don’t be shy. If you can play in front of sixty-five thousand fans in a game ESPN2 picked up and broadcast live, you can sit on my stage for ten minutes. This is the easy part. I’m just going to ask a couple questions about why you started playing and where you hope to go from here, that sort of thing. It’s all written down so you can think on your responses before you step onto the stage. Your fans deserve answers from you.”

“I don’t have fans, and they don’t want my answers,” Neil replied. That was probably fair – he had pursuers, and all of his answers would be lies.

“Be smart, Neil,” Kathy said, in a tone that made even Renee’s mouth twitch with distaste. “You can’t spend this season running from the press when you’re playing with Kevin Day.”

“I said no.”

“You’re not looking at the big picture. This year can make the world for you. If you want to get anywhere, you need our help. Everything has fallen so perfectly into place for you. Don’t let it collapse so early in the game or you’ll regret it the rest of your life. Kevin, you understand, don’t you?”

Ironies, ironies. She couldn’t have gotten Neil’s truths more wrong if she tried. It was no wonder he looked like he wanted to spit in her face.

Kevin said, “He’ll do it.”

During their ensuing back-and-forth in French, Kevin’s smile never shifted, but his eyes were cold. He would be threatening Neil, and he would be using the only threat that would put that sick look on Neil’s face – cutting him out.

Kevin looked back to Kathy and nodded, saying in English, “It’s settled.”

Kathy’s smile bounced straight back. “Brilliant.”

She turned away to lead them into the building, and Kevin gripped Neil’s shoulder to push him after her. Neil twisted in his grip, slapping at Kevin to force him away. When Kevin moved in again, Matt reached straight over Neil’s shoulder and pushed Kevin backwards. The altercation made Abby hiss and Wymack roll his eyes.

With Kevin out of the way, Andrew considered Neil – his fake eye colour and oversized shirt, the poisonous look on his face, secrets lined up in a row like ducks just waiting to be shot down. Andrew hoped he felt more scared of the public at large than he ever had or would of Andrew, because their scrutiny was much, much more dangerous.

Neil happened to glance over and meet Andrew’s eyes then, pausing. Andrew took the chance to tell him, “You’re so stupid.”

Neil’s lack of response was a concession. He knew Andrew was right.

Inside the building, Kevin and Neil were lead off in a different direction than the rest of them. Andrew ignored the itch of that, following the others through a series of doors and then into the area for the audience. He ended up sitting between Wymack and Matt, ignoring the chattering of the team around him.

Shortly before 7AM, the lights went down, and aides rushed around in front of the stage doing last minutes checks. The crowd burst into applause when Kathy herself strode out onto the stage a few minutes later, doing a sweeping bow to them and the cameras.

Andrew tuned out the chit-chat introduction too. The wild cheering from the crowd for Kevin brought him back as Kevin stepped onto the stage smiling. He took Kathy’s hand again like they were just meeting, kissing her on the cheek and allowing her to turn him and show him off to the crowd.

“God,” Matt said to Dan beside Andrew, speaking up to be heard over the audience. She nodded in reply, grinning crookedly.

Kevin took one of the couches as Kathy sat behind her desk, leaning forward to grin shark-like at him. “Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. I still can’t believe I talked you into this. I hope you’ll forgive me when I say it’s surreal to see you back here alone! I still think of you as one half of a whole.”

Beside Andrew, very quietly, Wymack snorted.

“At least I had room to stretch out now,” Kevin replied, a neat sidestep. “I might have to do so in a minute. I can’t believe you expect us to be awake and presentable after last night’s games.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Kathy laughed. “But you clean up nice, as always.”

Someone behind the Foxes cheered at that, making Kevin laugh. “Thank you.”

“So, let’s talk about last night. First, what it means, that the NCAA season started and you’re wearing orange. Please don’t take offense to this, as I mean no slight against your new team, but why did you transfer to Palmetto State? I understand you came as an assistant coach, but once you knew you could play again, why sign with the Foxes? I’m sure you had choices. Why would you go from the top of the ladder to the bottom?”

It was a little bit laughable, hearing the public perception of Kevin’s signing while knowing the truth of the story.

“Coach Wymack was friends with my mother. As I’m sure you know, she taught him how to play. Ever after she died and Coach Moriyama took me in, Coach Wymack kept in touch with me. Last December I thought I would never play again. I was a wreck. Coach Wymack was the only one I could think of turning to, and he didn’t disappoint me. He and his team took me in without hesitation. I enjoy working with them,” Kevin said, looking down at his left hand dispassionately. It was nearly a truthful summation of events, all told, though prettied up for the crowd.

Kathy reached over and took his hand, smiling. “I admit I expected you to return to Edgar Allen this fall. Regardless of where you are, it’s amazing to see you back in action. You deserve a round of applause for that.”

The Foxes clapped along with the rest of the crowd, Dan, Matt and Renee cheering too.

Kathy sat back. “Kind of unfortunate that your first game back was against Breckenridge, isn’t it? You took three points last night, fifth-year senior Seth Gordon bagged two, and your newest teammate scored two. Let’s talk about Neil Josten for a moment, shall we?”

“Of course,” Kevin replied. There was no glimmer of relief at the conversation moving off of him and the Ravens to be seen, but Andrew would have put money on him feeling it.

“You really know how to upset things around here, don’t you? What were you thinking, recruiting someone as fresh as Neil?”

“Neil is exactly what the Foxes need right now.” Andrew hoped Neil was watching this. “His experience is inconsequential. We went through a hundred files looking for a striker sub for this year, but Neil is the only one we approached. We knew as soon as we saw him we needed to sign him. We’re just lucky we got there before anyone else did.”

Andrew strongly doubted that Hernandez had sent files to any other college coaches. Only Wymack had been deserving of that particular scrap of troubled talent. He admired Kevin’s use of ‘we’ to mean ‘I’, though.

“You went to great lengths to get him, I hear,” Kathy said. “Refusing to even give the ERC his name, is that right?”

“Our primary concern was keeping Neil safe. Spring was very difficult for Palmetto State. Announcing him as ours would put a target sign on his back. The ERC was initially hesitant to fly blind on him, but they eventually sided with us.”

Andrew felt a bubble of amusement in the back of his throat. Of course the ERC had been hesitant – the last controversial Fox signing had been Andrew himself. They’d undoubtedly thought that Wymack had found someone even worse than him.

“You didn’t think the ERC could keep his secret?” Kathy asked.

Kevin paused, then said, “Let me put it this way: ‘Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead’. I mean no offense by that, but let’s be honest. Sixteen people are assigned to the ERC and one of them is the coach of a fiercely competitive team. Even gossip shared in confidence can get out and destroy a man’s life.”

Well, Kevin would know.

“So much work and effort for a single player,” Kathy simpered. “I can’t wait to see what you make of him. Why don’t we take another look at him? Let’s see the man who replaced Riko Moriyama at Kevin’s side. Introducing Neil Josten, the newest Palmetto Fox!”

The Neil who stepped out onto the stage was utterly po-faced, devoid of emotion. As disguises went, it was more suited to a court of law than the television screen.

He shook Kathy’s hand – firm, no-nonsense, a complete confirmation that that was not smiling Riko Moriyama – and then took a seat beside Kevin.

Kathy looked over them both seated next to one another, and then remarked to the audience at large, “Isn’t this an interesting picture? Kevin is paired again.”

She smiled broadly at Neil, her head resting on her hand. “I’m not exaggerating much when I say you’re the talk of the nation, Neil. You’re the amateur who caught a national champion’s eye. This kind of thing should only happen in fairy tales, don’t you think? How does it feel?”

“Undeserved.” Even Neil’s voice was flat lining. “I gave Millport everything I had because I knew it was going to be my only chance. Kevin was the last person I expected to see in Arizona.”

Andrew remembered Neil’s white face when he saw Kevin in that locker room. He was willing to bet that last part was the truth.

“Lucky for us he found you. You have a natural talent for the game. It’s a pity you started so late. Imagine where you’d be today if you started a couple of years ago. Maybe you would have been snatched up by Edgar Allen or USC, if Kevin’s right about your potential. Why did you wait so long?”

“I was never really interested in team sports before,” said the man who looked like he would lie down and die on the court for the game itself. “I only tried out at Millport because I was new in town and thought it’d help me get to know people. I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way.”

Kathy winked. “If it bothers you, I’ll take your spot. I don’t mind cozying up to Kevin.”

Dan made a quiet but unmistakable retching noise in her chair, and Matt huffed a laugh.

“Would you really come between two strikers?” Kevin asked with a sharp grin.

“Is it possible? It’s no secret there was hostility between you and the Foxes’ strikers last year. Last night made it obvious there are still problems to work through with Seth. That doesn’t seem to be the case with you two.”

It wouldn’t be. Two peas in a pod, plus whatever Kevin held over Neil’s head, and Neil’s desperate need to stay in arm’s reach of Kevin. Andrew does note the look Neil shoots Kevin at that – it’s ironic that even now Neil doesn’t seem to understand that their spiky relationship is two-sided.

“Seth graduates in May, so there is less a chance or need to rehabilitate his style to mine. Neil, on the other hand, is just starting out. We have all the time in the world,” Kevin replied.

“That implies you see this as a permanent gig. Do you really have no plans to return to Edgar Allen? Does it depend on how well you adjust to playing right-handed this season, or do you intend to graduate from Palmetto State regardless?”

Kevin paused before saying, “I would like to stay as long as Coach Wymack will have me.”

Andrew felt Wymack adjust in his chair at that – the implication that Wymack would be the one who made Kevin leave.

“Ahh, the Ravens must be sad to hear that,” Kathy hummed. “I imagine Riko misses you.”

“We will see each other again this fall.”

“Indeed you will. They’re in your district now. Why the major change?”

“I don’t presume to understand Coach Moriyama’s motivations,” Kevin lied.

“You mean they didn’t tell you?” Andrew would bet that the surprise flitting over her face was real.

“We are all very busy. It is difficult to keep in touch.”

Kathy’s surprise was wiped away by another beaming smile. “Well then. Have I got a treat for you!”

Music burst over the loudspeakers, slow and threatening. It sounded like a precursor to ritualistic murder, so the crowd leaping as one to its feet to chant was almost comical.

It took Andrew a moment to click. They were saying _king_. Every speck of colour had drained from Kevin’s face, leaving him grey.

When Riko stepped out of the wings onto the stage, he was dressed to match Kevin but all in black. It did nothing to make him look any taller. From the expression on Kevin’s face, his murderer had arrived after all.

How generous of Kathy to reunite them here, on live television. After all, she thought of the two of them as brothers, perhaps closer than brothers. She had no idea that the last time they’d breathed the same air, Riko had destroyed Kevin’s hand and set in motion the events that had brought them here, to this moment.

While the audience screamed and cheered, Riko pressed a kiss to Kathy’s cheek, their mouths moving but the words drowned out. Riko turned then and walked to the couch where Kevin and Neil sat, looming over him.

It took moments for the crowd to quiet, and only then did Riko say, “Kevin. It’s been so long.”

Andrew was half out of his seat when Renee crashed into him.


	10. deal

Andrew was half out of his seat when Renee crashed into him. Her body forced him back, and Wymack and Matt grabbed his arms. He hoped they felt the knives there.

“Don’t,” Renee murmured. Half in his lap, her lips were right at the level of his ear. Her hand was sealed over his mouth, and he was restrained, so he wasn’t sure what she thought he would do now.

Up on the stage, Riko offered Kevin a hand. After a pause Kevin took it, letting Riko pull him up into an embrace.

Riko was slow to let go, holding Kevin at arm’s length and examining him. “I think you’ve shrunk since I last saw you. Don’t they feed you down here? I always heard southern food is heavy.”

“I run it off on the court, I guess,” Kevin replied, fumbling for his equilibrium.

“What a miracle,” Riko said. His tone was blade-sharp.

“It truly is a miracle,” Kathy cut in with a smile, proving just how oblivious most of the world was to Riko and Kevin’s issues. “Take a good look, everyone. Your golden pair is back, but for the first time ever, they’re rivals. Riko, Kevin, we thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for tolerating our incessant fanaticism.”

When she waved them back to their seats, Riko finally pulled away, moving toe the other couch. Kevin looked more like he was collapsing than sitting, ending up a little too close to Neil on the cushion.

“From what I’ve just heard from Kevin, it sounds like neither of you have spoken in a while,” Kathy said to Riko. “Is that right?”

“It is,” Riko replied. He had clearly gone to the same charm school as Kevin, or they’d spent too much time together, because they smiled the same way – fake. “You sound surprised.”

“Well, yes. I didn’t think it possible for you two to grow apart.”

“A year ago it would have been impossible, but you have to understand how emotionally crushing December was,” Riko said. Matt whispered, “Fuck him,” virulently under his breath. “The injury was Kevin’s to bear, but we all suffered for it. Some of us couldn’t handle the reality of what that accident meant, myself included. Kevin and I grew up at Evermore. We built our lives around that team and our pair work. I couldn’t believe we’d lost it. I couldn’t accept that our dreams had collapsed. Neither could he, so we withdrew from each other.”

“But for nine months?” She looked to Kevin for her answer this time.

“Perhaps it was inevitable,” he replied. His voice was quieter now, more truthful. “We made Exy the center of our lives, Kathy. We showed you our best, but we didn’t show you what it cost us. Juggling three teams, university classes, and public pressure was wearing us down, but we refused to admit it. We didn’t want to believe we had limits.”

“I can’t even imagine that stress and pressure. I suppose it had to put a strain on your friendship.”

“We are human sometimes,” Riko said, “and therefore we can’t help but have our differences, hmm, Kevin?”

“No family is perfect,” Kevin said.

“Can I just say it was terrifying when you two disappeared? The last we heard, you two had gone skiing to celebrate the end of the semester, and then no one saw either of you in public for a month. I feared the worst, but I didn’t realise what the worst really was until Coach Wymack made his announcement.”

Wymack shifted again. He probably thought it was rude to imply Kevin joining the Foxes was ‘the worst’, Andrew supposed.

“The worst was having everything and losing it,” Riko said, because apparently in addition to being as sweet natured and trustworthy as a snake, he was also pretentious to the point that Andrew wanted to kill him so he didn’t have to listen anymore. “We signed with Court last year, which meant we only have one dream left to achieve: to play together with Court at the summer Olympics. We knew it was coming, that it was just a matter of time, that a lifetime’s worth of effort and sacrifice was about to pay off. Then Kevin broke his hand.”

“Everything changed,” Kevin said. His voice was too soft, quiet even with a microphone on. “We weren’t ready to acknowledge that. It was easier to just walk away. Unwise, but easier.”

“Heartbreaking,” Kathy said. The pity in her face clearly wasn’t helping Kevin, because he stared blankly at his glass. Realising she was losing him, she turned to Riko. “But look at him now. Isn’t it amazing how far he’s come this year?”

“I’m not sure it is,” Riko replied. “But I’m saying that as his brother, as his best friend. You saw him last night, Kathy. I’m worried his wishful thinking and obsession will lead him to injure himself again. Can he recover a second time, emotionally or mentally?”

That was a threat, pure and simple. Andrew twitched, and felt Matt and Wymack both adjust their grips more firmly. He had never taken pleasure in hurting people, but he thought he might actually enjoy carving that smug look off of Riko Moriyama’s face.

“I thought friends were supposed to cheer each other on,” Neil said, all of a sudden, earning stares. Most people had probably forgotten he was even sitting there. “Believing in him now is the least you could do after completely abandoning him last winter.”

His tone was a tight contrast to that of the others, whip-quick and undeniably angry. The audience booed, but some of the Foxes cheered.

“Ah, forgive my bad manners,” Kathy told him. “I didn’t forget you over there, I just got distracted. Let’s get the pair of you introduced, though I’m not sure either one of you needs an introduction by now. Riko, Neil. Neil, Riko. Kevin’s past and present, or should I saw past and future?”

Riko looked across to Neil, taking him in. “To address that accusation of yours: mine and Kevin’s relationship is unique, and I do not expect you to understand it. Do not impress on us your petty ideas of friendship.”

It’s laughable, because Andrew didn’t think Neil had any ideas about friendship. Not that anyone was laughing at that point.

Except perhaps Neil Josten, who would laugh as he signed his own death warrant, apparently. “Was unique. _Was_. I’m pretty sure your relationship died when he couldn’t keep up with your team anymore.”

“Kevin chose to leave Edgar Allen. We mourned his absence but were glad to hear he found a coaching position.”

“But you’re not happy that he’s playing again,” Neil stated. “Isn’t that why you transferred to our district? You don’t think Kevin should be on the court again, so you’ll cut him off at the pass. You’ll destroy his chance of making a comeback and make him watch as your team succeeds yet again. You’re rubbing his face in everything he’s lost, and from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re enjoying it.”

“Christ,” Wymack muttered under his breath.

“I will ask you only once to tone down that animosity,” Riko said. He was all control.

“I can’t,” Neil said, a sharp-faced and smiling contrast. “I have a bit of an attitude problem.”

“A bit?”

“Neil does bring up a valid point I’d like to discuss,” Kathy cut in. “This district change is an unprecedented move. For it to be Edgar Allen makes it more surprising. Neither your coach nor the Exy Rules and Regulations Committee has given a satisfactory reason, but I don’t think Neil’s far off in thinking you transferred because of Kevin.”

Kathy might have to keep looking over her shoulder too, at this rate.

“Kevin plays only a small role in our decision, and not for the reasons this child claims,” Riko replied. “It was not a decision made lightly on our part and we’ve taken an unfair bit of criticism for it. The north says we are transferring to keep our ranking secure, as if they ever had a chance of unseating us, and the south cries unfair at having to contend with us. We are the nation’s best team, after all, and the southeastern district is…well, it’s subpar, to be polite. To be honest, its teams are dreadful. We hope our transfer changes that. We’re here to inspire the south.”

Kathy lit up at this show of benevolence. “You want to do for the south what Kevin is doing for the Foxes.”

“Yes, but it will be much easier if Kevin plays along.”

“How so?”

“Kevin cannot and will not play for us again. He knows this; this is why he did not return to us this spring. Our affection for him doesn’t forgive his new inadequacies on the court, and he respects the Ravens too much to drag us down. That doesn’t mean Evermore isn’t his home. His work with the Foxes this spring proved we can find a place for him on our staff. We’d like him to return to us as one of our coaches.”

So, so generous. Andrew wonders how comfortable those shackles are looking to Kevin now, dressed up so nicely.

“Sounds like a difficult choice, Kevin,” Kathy said, turning to him. “I have to admit both ideas fascinate me. As much as I love watching the Foxes improve, it breaks my heart to see you away from Edgar Allen.”

“You wouldn’t honestly have him go back would you?” Neil asked. He was looking at Riko. “I can’t believe it.”

“This has nothing to do with you,” Riko replied.

“Stop being so selfish,” Neil said. Kathy finally lost the smile. “If Kevin’s dream has always been to be the best on the court, what right do you have to take it away from him? Why would you ask him to settle for less? The Foxes are giving him a chance to play whereas you’d relegate him to the sidelines. He has no reason to transfer back.”

“Palmetto State is a waste of his talents,” Riko said.

“Not as much as Edgar Allen was. Your team’s ranked first? Congratulations and big deal,” Neil said. Someone in the crowd whooped a laugh. “Maintaining a top position is far easier than starting over from the gutters. Kevin is doing that right now. He’s facing entirely new schools and learning to play with his less dominant hand. When he masters it, and he will, he’ll be better than you could ever have made him.”

It seemed Neil was invested in repaying Kevin’s confidence in him tit-for-tat. Andrew wasn’t sure whether it was out of his obsession or out of a need to watch Riko squirm. Either way, he doubted Kevin was pleased for the defence.

Neil continued before Riko could get a word in edgeways. “Do you know why? It’s not just his natural talent. It’s because he’s with us. There are only ten Foxes this year. That’s one sub for every position. Think about it. Last night we played Breckenridge. They have twenty-seven people on their roster. They can burn through players as fast as they want because they have a pile of replacements. We don’t have that luxury. We have to hold out ground on our own.”

The Foxes clapped, bar the three holding Andrew down.

“You didn’t hold your ground,” Riko said over to of it. “You lost. Your school is the laughing stock of the NCAA. You’re a team with no concept of teamwork.”

“Lucky for you. If you were a unified front you wouldn’t have a chance against us.”

“You cannot last and your unfounded arrogance is offensive to everyone who actually earned a spot in Class I,” Riko snapped. “Everyone knows the only reason Palmetto qualified for this division is because of your coach.”

Neil raised an eyebrow. “Funny, I’m pretty sure that’s how Edgar Allen qualified.”

“We’ve earned our prestige a thousand times over. You’ve earned nothing but pity and scorn, neither of which should be tolerated in a sport. Someone as inexperienced as you are has no right to have an opinion on the matter.”

“All the same, I’ll give you one,” Neil said. Wymack huffed a laugh, incredulous. “I don’t think you’re telling Kevin to sit out because of his health. I think you know this season is going to be a disaster for your reputation. You and Kevin have always played in each other’s shadows. You’ve always been a pair. Now you have to face each other on the court as rivals for the first time, and people are finally going to know which one of you is better. They’re going to know how premature this was.”

It couldn’t have been clearer had he said it out loud that Neil knew the precise reason why Riko had broken Kevin’s hand in the first place. It was a threat on its own. He gestured to his left cheek under his eye where Riko and Kevin both wore their tattoos. “I think you’re scared.”

Riko smiled. It was cold. “I am not scared of Kevin. I know him.”

Neil smiled back. It was less the Neil Josten the Foxes knew, and more of the smile Andrew had seen in Wymack’s apartment that day he’d gotten the truth from Neil – wretched, chilly, genuinely amused. “You’re going to eat those words. You’re going to choke on them.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Kathy cut in, before the two of them could move on from verbal violence to something a little more satisfying. “You’ve got seven weeks until your match and I, for one, am already counting down the seconds. There’s so much to look forward to this year, but one question can’t wait: orange or black, Kevin? What colour is your future?”

Kevin’s hand was white-knuckled around Neil’s forearm, and he didn’t look at his old teammate as he said, “I already said it. I would like to stay at Palmetto as long as they’re willing to have me.”

The Foxes started the cheering, the rest of the audience quick to follow, the sound sweeping over them. Amidst the din, Renee finally removed her hand from Andrew’s mouth, big-eyed and murmuring an honest, “I’m sorry,” as she did so. Matt and Wymack let go too, letting the blood arc back to Andrew’s fingers.

The light at the stage went dark, and Wymack gestured Neil and Kevin off of the stage with a throat-slit gesture. Kevin seemed frozen to the spot, but Neil forced him into moving with his body.

Andrew stood, and Wymack cut his gaze off the stage to him. “Where are you going?”

Andrew smiled back. His fingers were buzzing with prickling sensation, but he wasn’t angry – yet. “Where do you think?”

“Be smart,” Wymack recommended. “I don’t want to have to bail you out of jail.”

“You think they’d let me out on bail?” Andrew asked, and left.

He ignored the aides waving at him and took the shortcut across the stage into the wings. By the time he caught up to Kevin and the others, Riko had nearly forced Neil back out onto the stage, and Kevin was holding his cheek where it was marked red.

“Riko,” Andrew said, generous, extending his arms in welcome. “It’s been a while.”

Riko fumbled in his surprise, trying to regain his composure for a moment until he recognised Andrew.

“We were just talking about you,” he replied.

“With your fists, it seems,” Andrew said. “Don’t touch my things, Riko. I don’t share.”

He pressed a firm hand to Neil’s shoulder behind him, watching as he skirted Andrew and Riko both, gathered Kevin, and left. Riko didn’t look away from Andrew.

“It seems your attitude hasn’t improved since I last saw you,” he said.

“So I’ve been told,” Andrew replied breezily. “Careful, king. You put on a good show of brotherly semi-support out there. You wouldn’t want someone catching you bruising Kevin to make all of that a waste of time.”

Riko looked like he wanted to hit Andrew for that, but he wouldn’t dare. He didn’t like to hurt people who could fight back, of course – Andrew knew plenty of men like him.

He left, catching up with the rest of the Foxes by the door.

“When I said Abby and I would look out for you, I didn’t mean you should pick a fight with Riko on national television,” Wymack was saying, arms crossed and face set in a scowl. “Should I have spelled that out beforehand?”

“Probably,” Neil replied. He was watching Kevin.

Apparently the fanaticism extended past stalking and into protectiveness. That, Andrew could use.

“It’s fine, Coach,” Andrew said, brushing his fingers against Neil’s back on the way past. Neil didn’t react other than looking to him, clear-eyed, as he went past and pressed a hand to Abby’s arm so she backed off of her fierce embrace of Kevin.

“Kevin, we’re going. Right now, okay?” he said, and when Kevin let go of Abby Andrew herded him towards the exit.

The bus was locked, so Andrew and Kevin waited in its shadow. Kevin, white-faced, put his hand on the smooth orange side of the bus and said, “Fuck.”

Aaron and Nicky caught up a moment later, Aaron looking bored and Nicky concerned. Nicky said, “Kevin, are you okay?”

“No,” Kevin replied bluntly, rubbing a hand over the already-darkening patch of skin on his face. Nicky slung an arm around his shoulders and peered up at the spot.

“Did he hit you?” he demanded. “Fuck, Kevin. He should be arrested for assault.”

“No,” Kevin replied, shrugging him off.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nicky,” Andrew said through his smile. “Kevin doesn’t want the man in prison. If he did, Riko would already be there, remember?”

This got a blank stare from Kevin. He was frightened, more so now that he was away from Riko. This was a reminder that Riko could get at him so very easily, that moving to a new school and a new state wasn’t really running when they would end up on the same court.

Andrew knew the look of runners. He knew what Kevin was thinking, and knew that the only direction Kevin could go was back to Evermore.

The other Foxes joined them, and they loaded up and got straight on the road. Kevin hunkered down in his seat in silence, face turned out the window.

Halfway back to Palmetto, the clock ticked down on Andrew. Abby walked seat to seat down to him, hanging onto the back of Kevin’s as she looked him over before turning to Andrew.

“It’s that time again,” she said, faux-cheerful, tired beneath it. Andrew dug the pill bottle from his pocket and rattled it before popping the cap and tipping one into his palm. He swallowed it dry.

“Show me,” Abby said, and Andrew stuck out his tongue at her. She smiled back at him, worn thin.

They made good time back to campus, Wymack pulling the bus up by Fox Tower to let them unload. He put a hand in front of Andrew to make him pause, and said, “Be smart.”

“I know, I know,” Andrew replied, waving a hand. Wymack nodded and let him pass, and Andrew headed straight towards the dorm. He took the stairs up, hearing the others following.

On their floor, he went to the door to their suite and unlocked it. Dan paused by him, hovering at his shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. “Let’s have lunch together as a team. We don’t have to talk about this morning if you don’t want to.”

A generous offer. Andrew tilted his head and said, “No.”

He swung the door open, looking to Kevin. Kevin stepped into the doorway.

“Don’t worry, Kevin,” Dan said. “We’ll figure this out together.”

There was nothing for her to figure out. Kevin glanced back, so Andrew set his hand in his spine and pushed him through the door. That earned him a scowl from Dan. Andrew smiled back as Aaron and Nicky trailed inside, and then slammed the door on her.

“Asshole,” he heard Matt say through the door. He locked it.

 

* * *

 

A sliver of light from the bedroom door made Andrew blink. Neil closed it behind him, pausing to look around the room and at Andrew himself.

There was a cool breeze blowing through the hole he’d put in the window. His hand stung a little when he flexed it. He thought that his knuckles might scar with starbursts.

If he’d hit the window in the main room, he’d probably have bled out by now, his artery sliced to ribbons. Unfortunately that thought wasn’t satisfying.

“You could have destroyed your hand with a stunt like that,” Neil said, boringly.

Andrew laughed – one-track mind. “Oh my, where would I be then?”

“Off the team. Where would Kevin be then?” Neil asked.

When Andrew didn’t reply, he came closer – into reach, then a little closer. Andrew didn’t look up at him, stretching his fingers again and smiling broad and bright.

“Oh, Neil, as unpredictable as he is unreal,” he said. The words tasted like battery acid. “The last time we spoke you were afraid Riko would notice you. Either you lied to me or you changed your mind. I do hope it’s the latter, because I hate being lied to.”

“I didn’t change my mind, but I didn’t have a choice.”

“There is always a choice,” Andrew told him. It was true, essentially so – no one had made Neil speak that way, or speak at all. That was what made him useful right now.

“I had to say something,” Neil replied. All that proved was that he had a righteous streak – funny, funny – or that when the choices ranged from bad to stupid, he was liable to pick stupid.

“And what a thing to say! You took a swing at Riko on live TV. He’s not going to take that sitting down, you know. How’s that target on your back feel?”

“Familiar.”

Andrew sat up and leaned back into the window, hearing the shift of shattered glass as he did so. Neil looked down to Andrew’s hand, and then back up to his face, measured and serious.

“Give him a couple of days and he’ll know everything about you. Money greases the wheels of the world easier than blood does,” and that, Andrew would know, “and Riko has access to both. He’ll look for a way to get back at you, and it won’t take him long to see how cold your trail is. How long do you think it’ll take someone with his connections to figure out the truth?”

Neil had gone pale. Apparently hearing the truth out loud was different to knowing it, or perhaps he’d been doing a good job of not thinking about it. He said, “Shut up.”

“What will you do when he finds out?” Andrew asked. “Run?”

“You know I will.”

“I know. I can see it,” Andrew said. He could read it out of Neil’s fake-brown eyes. “You’ve got that look in your eye that says you know where every exit in this dormitory is.”

Neil moved – running already, it seemed – but Andrew was quick enough to snag him, gripping the nape of his neck and dragging him back. His fingers dragged on skin, tacky with his own blood. It was satisfying to leave a mark, even one that would wash off.

Neil clawed at Andrew’s hand, but couldn’t peel his fingers off. Andrew said, “Hey, Neil. Neil, listen. Running won’t save you this time.”

“Let go of me,” Neil spat, half-hunched and still struggling.

“Don’t you understand?” Andrew asked. “Running was only an option when no one was looking. You knew that back in June. It’s why you wanted to leave before October. You could have left before Riko knew you existed. You should have left before you insulted him in front of all of his adoring fans. Now you can’t go. Riko wants to know who defied him, and he’ll get his answers. You can’t outrun your past anymore.”

“I have to try.”

Andrew hummed. “ ‘Have to’ nothing. There you go again, thinking there’s only one choice. I thought you didn’t want to leave.”

That earned Andrew a hard look. “I don’t want to.”

“What would it take to make you stay?” Andrew asked.

He could use Neil. And right now, he thought he might need to.

Neil blinked. “What?”

His surprise forced a laugh from Andrew. “Name it and it’s yours. It doesn’t matter what it is so long as you stand your ground here with us.”

The trick to making a deal was in knowing how far the other person would go, and how hard they would push for the things they wanted. Neil was easy, because Andrew was offering him what he already wanted– to stay.

That was lucky. If Neil had wanted an expensive car, Andrew was going to have to take up car-jacking.

“I can’t,” Neil said, fraught.

“You can. You have everything you need to survive. You’re just too afraid to see it.” He and Kevin were the same.

“I don’t understand.”

“Riko will find out the truth, but he can’t tell his brother. For starters, Riko and Ichirou aren’t allowed to associate with each other, seeing how they belong to separate branches. More importantly, Coach Moriyama won’t let him. This year is about Kevin and Riko, see? He won’t want news about you getting out and distracting people from their showdown. They’re free to make your life a living hell and they’ll try to use the truth against you, but they can’t sell you out yet.

“Use that time to narrow the angle they can get at you. Kevin wants to make you a star, so let him. Take what he is giving you and make it your shield. It’s hard to kill a man when everyone’s eyes are on him. Make them love you, make them hate you, I don’t care. Just make them look at you. You have one year to figure it out.”

Andrew shifted, putting a finger in Neil’s face. “For one year, I’ll stand between you and the Moriyamas if you stand at Kevin’s side. Next year your life is your problem again, understand?”

If Neil got to live that long, they’d find out what happened when that year was up.

“Why?” Neil asked. He was frowning, brow creased, gone slack in Andrew’s grip. “Why would you help me?”

Andrew touched his fingers to his smile. “Ask me later. It’s better if this isn’t in the way, don’t you think? You’ll get your answers in Columbia. Oh, but no one told you yet, did they? You’re coming out with us tonight.”

“Never again,” Neil said through his teeth.

“Shh, Neil, shh. If you want to stay, you’ll come with us at nine. If you’re stupid enough to run, pack up and leave before then. That’s three hours, almost, for you to make up your mind. Aren’t I generous?”

“That’s not enough time.” His eyes flickered. That was what Andrew wanted, and was counting on – three hours wasn’t long enough for a sentimentalist to let go. Neil, despite everything, was precisely that.

“I doubt you’re a stranger to snap judgments when it comes to saving your skin,” Andrew said. “You gave your game to Kevin. Give your back to me.”

He was at zero, into the negatives, more than the pain in his hand pulsing at his awareness. He pulled his drugs out of his pocket, shaking a pill out onto the dresser and then recapping the bottle before tossing it across the room. The pill he held up to examine – smooth and white, much more harmless in appearance that it really was, stark against the blood on his fingers – before putting it into his mouth and swallowing.

He turned a grin on Neil, teeth corpse-bare. “Tick tock, says the clock. Get out of my room.”


	11. paranoia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's sex in this chapter, fyi.

Renee was obviously nominated to check on them, because she was the one who knocked at the suite door after Neil left. Nicky opened the door for her, but before stepping across the threshold she asked, “Can I come in?”

She was asking Andrew. He gestured expansively, an obvious invitation. She flicked a quick look to Kevin but approached Andrew first, reaching out a hand towards him.

“You should clean that up,” she said, matter of fact. The blood on his fingers had clotted enough to flake away. “Let me?”

Andrew let her. Underneath the cuts weren’t bad, and didn’t need dressing. Renee didn’t tut over him, her hands easy and impersonal in a way that always sat strange on the lovely and kind Renee Walker, but suited Natalie Shields down to the ground.

“Kevin,” she said without looking up from her work. “How soon do you think Riko will react to this? What happened on the show, I mean.”

Kevin didn’t look up either, his gaze fixed blankly on the wall. “Tonight.”

Renee’s brow pinched. “That fast?”

“He’s never been patient,” Kevin replied, and then didn’t say anything else.

Renee finished quietly, giving Andrew’s hand back. “There you go.”

“All better?” Andrew asked with a smile.

The smile he got in response was tight. “Better, anyway.” She left then, no doubt to report back to the upperclassmen.

Andrew was right, because ten minutes later there was another knock. This time it was Dan, shoving through the doorway when Nicky got it halfway open rather than waiting for permission. “Where is Neil?”

“Why would we know?” Aaron asked, voice bored.

“Because he was here last, and we haven’t seen him since,” Dan replied through her teeth. “You said Riko would respond tonight. You don’t think we should worry that Neil’s gone missing?”

“Missing,” Andrew mused. “Oh, no. He’ll be back by nine, don’t you worry.”

“Did he tell you that?” Dan demanded.

“Close enough,” Andrew replied with a shrug. He knew that he was right about that too. And if he wasn’t, well – it wasn’t his problem anymore.

At nine o’clock on the dot, he opened the door to the hallway and found Neil standing in front of it, hand curled into a fist like he’d been about to knock but paused halfway through.

“Oh, he made it,” Andrew said. “That’s interesting.”

Interesting, but not surprising. He reached out and laid two fingers over Neil’s carotid artery, finding and feeling the pulse there. Neil tried to knock his hand away, Andrew grabbed his wrist and held firm. Through both points of contact he could feel the rapid beat of Neil’s heart, afraid.

Afraid, but still here. Andrew said, “Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.”

Neil blinked at him, mouth parted, but Andrew gave him no time to speak before pulling him into the hall alongside him. Once they were clear of the door, he let go.

Nicky exited next, with Aaron behind him. Nicky grinned at the sight of Neil, but Aaron’s glance at Andrew conveyed his dubiousness clearly. They knew what Andrew had been waiting on, because Andrew had told them, and Nicky had just won money from Aaron off of Neil’s reappearance.

Kevin came out last, looking Neil over from head to foot. His expression wasn’t clear, but Andrew hoped he recognized in Neil someone who had just refused to run where Kevin still wanted to.

Down the hall, a group of Seth’s friends were knocking at the door of the suite Neil shared, and Seth stepped out to meet them. Allison followed, pressing herself to Seth’s spine while she slipped her hands into his pockets. She only got some gum and a lighter out of it, as well as an irritated look from Seth.

“I’m not stupid,” he said, which was debatable.

She kissed him instead of answering, putting the lighter back and tossing the gum. Behind her, Matt and Dan exited the room too. Matt’s expression when he saw Neil in the hall was intense with relief.

“Neil, you made it,” he said. Neil, oblivious to the fact anyone had been worried about him and unlikely to ever imagine that might happen anyway, looked blankly back at him and the others. “Seth and Allison are going bar-hopping downtown, so the rest of us are prepping a movie marathon. Any requests or recommendations?”

“You’re leaving campus?” Nicky asked Allison, rather hypocritically. “Are you serious?”

The look he got back was poisonous. “It’s none of your business.”

“Renee should be back with drinks any second,” Matt cut in. “She said she’d get something nonalcoholic for the two of you.”

“Oh, what a waste,” Andrew said. “I’m buying Neil’s drinks tonight.”

The implication was really just too good to pass up. The delayed outrage over the faces of the upperclassmen was even better.

“You’re joking,” Dan snapped.

Her expression made Andrew laugh. “You wish I was.”

“The last time he went out with you he hitchhiked his way back,” Dan said. “He is not going out with you again. He’ll probably wind up dead this time.”

“Jesus, Dan,” Nicky said, half mock-offended and half truly offended. “When you say things like that it makes me think you don’t trust us.”

“No one trusts you,” Matt said. It was aimed at Andrew more than the rest of them. “What are you playing at?”

“It’s not really any of your business,” Aaron replied.

“I said he’s not going. Neil, don’t let him push you around,” Dan said, not even noticing her own hypocrisy.

Andrew elbowed Neil lightly, swapping to German to say, “Hey, Neil. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that touching? Look how they weep over you. Ah, such misplaced concern. Tell them you can take care of yourself.”

It was a dare. Andrew knew better than all of them how thin the façade of Neil Josten was, but he figured if Neil really intended to stay he better start filling that façade out better than he had done so far. The boy who pretended to be quiet had a tongue like a knife, and today had proven that. Being another German-speaker was both interesting and really made it clear that Neil was a monster, too.

Neil rose to it. He knew whose side he was on, apparently, or at least had an inkling. “They’re not stupid enough to think it’s only a drink.”

“Oh shit,” Nicky said in German, startled. “Since when do you speak German? Andrew, you knew about this? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Boring,” Andrew shrugged him off. “Figure things out for yourself once in a while.”

Nicky said to Aaron, “Quick. Have we said anything totally incriminating these past few months?”

“Aside from your endless inappropriate comments about what you’d like to do to him, I don’t think so,” Aaron replied. “Looks like you’ve managed to completely embarrass yourself in both languages. When were you going to tell us?”

That last was aimed at Neil. He answered, “I wasn’t. After everything I’ve put up with from you this year I figured I didn’t owe you any favours.”

Aaron shrugged like that was fair enough, while Nicky rubbed his face. The upperclassmen were peering at them from down the hall, expressions ranging from puzzlement to disbelief.

“I thought you spoke French,” Matt said to Neil. “That was French this morning, right? At Kathy’s?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Neil replied in English, in a tackle of a side step.

“We’re going,” Andrew said, and left with Kevin right behind him. From over his shoulder her heard Dan say, “Neil, this isn’t a good idea.”

“I know,” Neil admitted, but he followed too.

 

* * *

 

At Eden’s Twilight, Andrew dragged Neil up to the bar to get the drinks again. Roland met them there, his expression curious and somewhat surprised as he took in Neil.

“He said no,” Andrew told him. “Keep them clean.”

Roland nodded, passing over a glass and a can of soda still sealed. When Roland turned away, Neil tilted the glass – examining the inside of it for anything.

“Paranoid,” Andrew noted.

“If you’re such a control freak you shouldn’t be drinking either,” Neil said.

“I know what my limits are. I’m not going to test them.”

“And dust?”

“Too much crazy in this system for dust to make a difference, I guess,” Andrew shrugged. “We got into dust for Aaron’s sake. He needed something safe to get on when he was coming off everything his mother gave him.”

Neil looked away from his glass at that piece of information. He’d ditched the contacts back at Sweetie’s, his eyes their proper chill blue when he met Andrew’s gaze.

Andrew gestured between them. “Do you remember this game? We’re doing the honesty thing again, at least until I grow bored of it. In a moment you’re going to be perfectly honest with me and tell me what I hate to do to keep you here.”

“Here’s some honesty,” Neil replied. Andrew wondered if he noticed that he’d suddenly adopted the same tone he’d used on Riko that morning. “I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you.”

“It’s mutual. That doesn’t change a thing.”

“Nicky says you’re only keeping me here because of Kevin. What happens if Kevin gets bored of me?”

“Keep his interest,” Andrew ordered.

Neil stared at him for a long moment without speaking, one side of his mouth curled down. He looked like he was cursing every life choice he’d made that had brought him to this point. “Can you protect me from my past?”

“Your father’s boss,” Andrew said.

“Yes. Word got around that the Moriyamas didn’t trust his people anymore, and his business never really recovered. He’s been after me ever since,” Neil said. “He was arrested on some small charges a while back but he won’t be in jail forever. You said the Moriyamas can’t touch me this year because of Kevin, but he won’t stop. If he finds me, he’ll kill me.”

“What a mess,” Andrew remarked. “Easy enough to take care of, though.”

All people died the same way, after all. Neil’s fear wouldn’t make this one man immortal.

A group of people shoved up to the bar, pressing Neil forwards into Andrew. Andrew didn’t move, taking Neil’s weight. He was surprisingly light – Andrew wasn’t sure why it was surprising, but it was – and his body was warm and lithe through the clothes Andrew had paid for. He made an interesting picture, with his pale eyes and dark hair and the milky skin of his throat, the way he bent into Andrew just for a moment rather than pushing away.

Roland turned back around then, sliding a tray of drinks across the bar to Andrew. Andrew took it, gesturing to Neil to go ahead. As Neil turned away Andrew met Roland’s eyes, and the bartender mouthed something that looked like _you owe me._ Andrew ignored that for now, hoisting the tray over his head and walking back to the table in Neil’s wake.

With Columbia’s blue laws set to cut them off at midnight, drinking turned into a race that Kevin seemed determined to win. If he could walk when they left Andrew would be surprised. Andrew took his share and loaded them with dust. He hadn’t lied to Neil before – he knew his limits. The volume was barely enough to touch him, but it was enough to keep him a comfortable level of numb.

Aaron and Nicky peeled away to dance once they were done, and Andrew collected up the glasses to take back to the bar. Roland was serving a crowd of tittering women, but he met Andrew’s eyes with a smile just for a moment when he dumped the tray.

Andrew had left Kevin and Neil alone, but he doubted they do anything besides refuse to look at each other in silence. The worse they could do was talk, and Andrew didn’t think Kevin would pause in drinking long enough for that to be an issue. He filed past the bar into the recessed door beside it, letting himself in.

Once again, Roland was only just behind him. Andrew caught him up, pressing him to hallway wall.

“I don’t owe you anything,” he reminded him. Roland tilted his head down to him, his smile crooked but genuine.

“You know, you’re lucky it does it for me when you’re an asshole,” he told Andrew. “Can I kiss you?”

“Not here,” Andrew said, letting go of him and leading the way to the locker room off one side of the hall.

When he turned around, Roland had leaned his back against the door, tilting his head to rest the crown of his skull there too. With his hands out of the way, it was easy for Andrew to get closer to him, and then to lean up and kiss him.

Roland wasn’t gentle, or at least wasn’t with Andrew, but he was careful. His mouth pressed hard and biting to Andrew’s, but never drew blood. Even when his breath got quick, when Andrew unzipped his fly and reached into his pants to jerk him off, Roland didn’t touch Andrew.

“Yeah, like that,” he muttered against Andrew’s mouth, squirming lightly like he wanted to buck into Andrew’s fist but wouldn’t. Andrew pinned his hips back and closed his hand a little tighter to get a groan out of Roland.

It didn’t take long before he came into Andrew’s palm, breaking their kiss to breathe with his eyelashes fluttering in pleasure. Andrew was achingly hard in his pants, but he ignored that in favour of looking Roland over from head to foot. He was panting, pink-cheeked and loose-limbed, and when he caught Andrew looking he smiled, slow and sharp.

“Go away,” Andrew told him, and wiped his hand on Roland’s shirt.

Roland made a face, exaggeratedly disappointed while seemingly not giving a damn about his clothes. “I could give you a hand? Heh.”

“No,” Andrew said, and covered Roland’s mouth before he could say anything else.

Roland reached up slowly with his own hand and, when Andrew didn’t stop him, curled it around Andrew’s. Without looking away from Andrew’s eyes, he took Andrew’s index and middle fingers into the heat of his mouth, laving them warmly with his tongue and then sucking hard enough to hollow out his cheeks.

When he took them out with an indecent pop, he arched closer to press a quick kiss to Andrew’s mouth. “I’ll make you and your crowd some more drinks. Stop by and get them once you’re done.”

Andrew stepped back to give him space, and Roland gave him one last grin before sliding out of the door and closing it behind him. Andrew turned to lean against it instead seeing as there was no lock, biting his lip hard enough to sting a little as he reached into his own pants. He got off quick remembering the flash of Roland’s eyes and the sounds he’d made, and if there was a little segue in his fantasy to the cock of someone with blue eyes and dark lashes and pale skin flushed pink by pleasure heavy on his tongue, then he was the only one who knew about it.

Neil looked up when Andrew returned, the only person sober enough to recognize how long he’d been gone, but he didn’t say anything. Kevin didn’t, his focus firmly on the fresh load of drinks Andrew had brought with him.

They had one last round just before midnight and then called it a night. Kevin crawled up Andrew’s side to get up, incapacitated by vodka and regret. Andrew pulled one of his arms across his shoulders to prevent him from wilting onto the pavement as they went out to the car.

“I can drive,” Neil told him quietly, sliding alongside him after shoving Nicky into the backseat. Andrew ignored him as he got into the front seat and started the car.

The short drive to the house wasn’t much, but the familiar feeling of the steering wheel under his hands was welcome. He guided the car the short drive across town, past suburban houses with picket fences and high schools dark and institutional at night. It was easy to believe that this landscape had shaped Nicky, and also that Andrew and Aaron had grown up in different places entirely.

Aaron’s phone went off as Andrew pulled into the driveway of the house. There was a prolonged period of rustling as he searched for it in his clothes, and then said, “Coach. Do you know what time it is? What? Wait, what? You’re lying. I don’t believe you.”

In the rearview mirror, Andrew watched him rip the phone away from his face and hold it forward between the front seats to Andrew. Andrew had a feeling he knew what the call would be about just looking at his brother’s creasing pale face. He lit a cigarette and then took the phone, cupping it with his shoulder.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“It’s Seth,” Wymack replied. He sounded tired. “He’s dead. They found him passed out and non-responsive in the bathroom at Bacchus and couldn’t revive him. He overdosed, they’re saying.”

“Overdosed like how?” Andrew asked.

“Again?” Nicky demanded from the back. “That stupid bastard.”

Andrew flicked a look at him over his shoulder. “Never again. He’s dead.”

“You tactless asshole,” Wymack sighed over the phone as the rest of the car sat in dead silence.

Nicky reached forward and grabbed Andrew’s shoulder, shaking him. “No. What?”

“Are you coming back tonight?” Wymack asked at the same time. Andrew, shrugging Nicky off, said, “No, not a good idea. I’ll call you when we’re back in town.”

“Make sure you do. I don’t particularly want any of you out of my sight right now,” Wymack said. “Andrew. Be careful.”

“Who overdosed?” Neil asked blankly, looking between them.

“Seth,” Andrew explained as he hung up. “Someone found him face-down in the bathroom at Bacchus where he drowned in his own puke. It’s exactly how I warned him he was going to clock out, not that he ever listened to me.”

“Seth overdosed?” Neil asked again. This time the blankness was from disbelief.

“Keep up with the conversation,” Andrew told him, blowing smoke out the cracked window.

“I thought he was on something, but I never saw him using.”

“He cleared most of it out of his system years ago,” Andrew said. “Only thing he’s on these days is antidepressants. Curious.”

It was curious, as was Neil’s non-reaction to the news. Apparently living with the man for all that time hadn’t endeared Seth to him, which didn’t surprise Andrew, but the lack of empathy on his face was special even amongst Foxes.

“Are we going back?” Neil asked. He was watching Nicky and Aaron like they were a new species, like he knew nothing at all about grief.

“When they’re all drunk and cracker high and I’m off my meds?” Andrew said. “I’ll be back in jail before you can say ‘threat to society’. We’ll wait until morning.”

He climbed out of the car, closing the door behind him. No one else moved to follow him. He could just make out the buzz of voices behind him as he walked up the front steps to the door of the house. Once he’d unlocked the front door he unwound the house key from his keychain, Neil pausing behind him on the doorstep out of his personal space.

“That’s interesting,” Andrew noted, pointing at Neil’s smooth unbothered face. “That apathy doesn’t bode well for your sanity.”

“I don’t understand suicide,” Neil said with a small shrug. “Staying alive has always been so important I can’t imagine actively trying to die.”

That explained so many things about Neil, but made a bigger mystery of his recklessness this morning. It also meant Neil was too stupid to have caught on yet. As he swung the door open and stepped into the dark hallway, Andrew said, “He didn’t. He wanted a way out for a little while, a few hours where he didn’t have to think or feel. Problem was he picked an out that’s easy to die on. That’s his fault.”

“Is that why you drink?” Neil asked from right on Andrew’s heels. “You don’t want to feel?”

Andrew stopped and turned, suddenly enough Neil nearly walked straight into him. He pushed his index finger in the vulnerable hollow of Neil’s collarbone, sharply enough to leave a mark from his nail – a warning. Neil responded by taking the cigarette from Andrew’s other hand, and Andrew didn’t take it back from him.

“I don’t feel for anyone or anything,” Andrew said. “Don’t forget that.” He wasn’t sure which if them he was talking to.

“So Kevin’s just a hobby for you?” Neil asked without moving. Once again they were breathing-space close and he seemed perfectly at ease.

“Seth didn’t kill himself,” Andrew said. “He couldn’t have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Seth only takes his pills when he and Allison are on the outs. When they’re together she’s enough to hold him up. She went with him tonight, so she would have made sure he left his pills at home. She knows he likes chasing them with drinks.”

Neil’s brow pinched. “She checked him. I saw her.”

“So did I.”

“If he didn’t have his pills on him, how did he overdose?”

Either he’d fallen back to bad habits, or it was something else. Occam’s razor would indicate the first option was the correct answer, but Andrew knew that the simplest explanation wasn’t always the truth. “Not by choice. My theory says Riko won this round.”

The wrinkles on Neil’s forehead were smoothed away by shock. “You don’t really think Riko did this.”

“I think the timing’s too convenient for it to be an accident. Riko broke Kevin’s hand for being better. He crossed districts because Kevin picked up a racquet and got back on the court. What do you think he’s willing to do to you for calling him useless of national TV?

“You said our greatest strength is in our small size. How strong do you feel now that you’ve been bumped to our starting line? You think you and Kevin are ready to carry us to championships?”

“And you call me paranoid,” Neil replied.

“They were supposed to stay on campus tonight. Renee stopped by after you left and asked how soon we could expect Riko to respond. Kevin said we would hear back tonight. Pity you didn’t see the busybodies panic when they realized you weren’t at the dorm anymore. I told them you’d be back at nine, so they built their plans around you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I can’t prove it,” Andrew said, “but I know I’m right.”

“If you are, then what?” Neil asked, proving he had something like a guilt complex after all. “I’m willing to gamble with my life. I won’t gamble with theirs. They don’t deserve that.”

Well, that belief had come a little late for Seth. Not that he was any great loss. “You don’t have to. I do, and I say the odds are good. The Foxes are famous for having terrible seasons, but even bad luck only goes so far. One death is a believable tragedy. Two brings up below the bare minimum number of requisite players to compete. Coach Moriyama wants Kevin and Riko to face-off on court, so Riko can’t risk disqualifying us.”

Neil didn’t respond, turning his eyes away to the wall. Andrew reached out and curled his fingers into Neil’s collar, tugging at it. “I know what I’m doing. I knew what I was agreeing to when I took Kevin’s side. I knew what it would cost us and how far I’d have to go. Understand? You aren’t going anywhere. You’re staying here.”

Life and death was nothing new to Andrew. He held on to Neil until he finally nodded, then released his shirt in favour of stealing back his cigarette. That he put between his lips – the key he’d been holding he left in Neil’s palm.

Neil lifted his own hand to examine it. Andrew watched the slow whisper of realization cross his face.

“Get some sleep,” Andrew told him. “We’re going home tomorrow. We’ll figure this out then.”

Andrew left him adrift in the hallway, returning to the open front door and leaning his hip on the frame. Neil didn’t move for a long moment, and Andrew could feel the concrete weight of his gaze on his back before he padded away.

Outside, Kevin was still sitting in the front seat, no doubt trying to drunkenly figure out how they’d play with two strikers. Aaron hadn’t moved either, and Nicky was pacing, both hands curved around the back of his neck. Andrew settled down to wait them out, and exhaled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DONE. Thanks for reading and commenting!! <3


End file.
